Rabat, the catacomb town at Mdina's gates

Rabat is unlucky. It sits right against Mdina, and most visitors hurry through it on their way to the walled city’s gate. That’s a mistake, because what lies beneath its streets is the oldest surviving evidence of Christianity in Malta. It has 12,463 residents, according to the NSO, and it’s a proper working town, with its own life and its own parish.

Rabat and Mdina, one Roman town

In Roman times Rabat and Mdina formed a single town, Melite, considerably larger than the Mdina you see today. Dingli’s local council notes that the Popular Council which governed the island was based in Rabat for centuries. Today’s Mdina covers only part of that old town, and what was left outside its walls is modern Rabat.

That’s why the cemeteries are here. The Romans buried their dead outside the walls, and Heritage Malta explains that this area has more than thirty hypogea, rock-cut tombs, which formed a large cemetery already in use in Punic times. Mind the name, by the way, because there’s another Rabat on Gozo, which is Victoria, that island’s capital.

The catacombs and the Domvs Romana

St Paul’s Catacombs are the main event. For Heritage Malta they’re the oldest and most extensive archaeological record of the island’s first Christians, with a main complex of more than 2,000 square metres of passages and tombs, and no Maltese site won the European Heritage Label before them. Tickets are €6, with an audio guide.

Nearby are St Augustine’s Catacombs, which need an appointment, and Abbatija tad-Dejr, currently closed. If the subject grabs you, I’ve gathered them all in catacombs in Malta.

The Domvs Romana is the other side of Melite, the world of the living. It’s a Roman aristocrat’s town house found by chance in 1881 and turned into a museum in 1882, with mosaics and a set of statues of Emperor Claudius and his family. It’s the one that surprises me most, because you rarely get to see private Roman luxury this far from Rome.

The catacombs hardly anyone sees

Rabat has more hypogea than the ones on the tourist trail. Heritage Malta explains that St Augustine’s Catacombs, a few metres from St Paul’s, are marked by a plaque reading «Ad Catacumbas» and were used as a shelter in the Second World War, with a Union Jack and a swastika scratched on either side of the door and the time of an air-raid warning on the wall. When Heritage Malta took them over in 2008 they were being used to store building materials. Today they open by appointment only.

Abbatija tad-Dejr, four hypogea beside a 13th-century chapel, is temporarily closed, and its Crucifixion fresco has been moved to MUŻA in Valletta. Out on the coast, Ras ir-Raħeb, a possible temple of Hercules overlooking the Gozo channel, is permanently closed and can only be visited with written permission. I mention them so you don’t go looking on your own.

St Paul’s Grotto and the parish church

Tradition holds that St Paul, shipwrecked on Malta in AD 60, spent three months living in a cave in Rabat. That cave is St Paul’s Grotto, reached from the church and linked to the Wignacourt Museum, once the residence of the Order’s chaplains. The museum explains that St Paul’s parish church and the Sanctuary of St Publius, added in 1617, share a single front by Francesco Buonamici, with two entrances of equal rank so as not to upset either the Church or the Order. It’s one of the most Maltese stories I know.

How do you get to Rabat, and where to stay?

Rabat is served from Valletta terminus by the 50, 51, 52, 53 and 56. From the airport there are two Airport Direct services, the TD1 at €3.50 and the TD5, both hourly. If you’re driving to Mdina, Rabat is the place to leave the car, since parking inside the walls isn’t allowed. Remember that Malta drives on the left, as at home. Everything on tickets is in my page on buses in Malta.

For somewhere to sleep, the MTA register lists the five-star Verdala Wellness Hotel in Rabat, a small two-star hotel and 17 guesthouses, many more than in Mdina. I’d stay here to see Mdina after dark without paying five-star prices. Right next door is Mtarfa, the village that grew up around the British barracks, with a clock tower running since around 1895.

My plan for the day

I’d be at St Paul’s Catacombs at 09:00, when they open, and carry on to the Domvs Romana. I’d have lunch in Rabat and keep the afternoon for Mdina. If you buy the €14 Rabat Combo, pop into the Natural History Museum in Palazzo Vilhena too, as it’s included. And if the evening’s clear, head on to the Dingli Cliffs for sunset.