Balzan, the smallest of central Malta's Three Villages

Balzan is an inland Maltese village that hardly any visitor sets foot in, unless they’re staying at its best-known hotel. It has 5,145 residents, according to the NSO, and its parish describes it as one of the so-called Three Villages, alongside Attard and Lija. It’s a place of everyday local life with no ticketed sights, and that’s how I’ll present it.

From hamlet to parish

The local council’s history page dates the first recorded homes to 1419 and 1420, when around twenty people lived in Balzan. By 1575 there were 60 houses and some 500 souls, in a mix of village homes and farms. It offers two theories for the name, a Sicilian family called Balzan or Balzano, or a Sicilian tax collector who may have settled here.

Until the mid-17th century Balzan belonged to the parish of Birkirkara. The parish explains that in 1655 the villagers asked Bishop Balaguer to let them go their own way, and that he made Balzan an independent parish on 14 August that year. Nearby there is a far more recent case, Iklin, whose Holy Family parish dates only from 19 March 2005.

The Church of the Annunciation

By 1667 some 550 people lived in Balzan in 140 houses, and the old church was too small. The foundation stone of the new one was laid on 23 December 1669; it was blessed in 1695 and consecrated in 1781. It’s built on a Latin-cross plan with a single belfry, from 1708, holding six bells from the French foundry Paccard. The parish says the largest, weighing about four tonnes, ranks third in Malta after those of Birkirkara and St John’s Co-Cathedral.

The titular statue of the Annunciation dates from 1868 and is by Salvu Dimech, according to the council. The feast comes with a quirk. Since 1965 it has been held in summer instead of on its March date, because bad weather kept spoiling the street celebrations. There’s more on these feasts in my guide to Malta’s village feasts.

Balzan at war

The council records two Second World War stories that feel very Maltese to me. In 1940, after an air raid hit the superior courts in Valletta, they moved to Balzan and sat in the building the council occupies today. And between 1940 and 1943 the village took in large numbers of refugees from Valletta and the Cottonera, the Three Cities area, to the point that the population doubled.

Is Balzan worth a visit?

For sightseeing, no. Balzan is a residential, fairly dense village, with 1,210 foreign residents according to the NSO. The nearest ticketed attraction is San Anton Gardens in neighbouring Attard, and next door is Lija, with its parish church of 1694.

Where it does matter is accommodation. The MTA register lists the five-star Corinthia Palace here, with 158 rooms, plus two guesthouses and eleven holiday lets. If you’d like somewhere quiet, away from the coast in the middle of the island, with Mdina and Valletta within easy reach, it’s worth considering.