St Mary's Tower, Comino's lookout

St Mary’s Tower is the one thing you can pick out on Comino from almost any boat in the channel. Square, with four corner turrets and planted on top of the plateau, it’s the island’s best viewpoint and one of the Order’s buildings that best explains what coastal towers were for.

Why the Knights put a tower on Comino

Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt made the decision in 1618. VisitMalta’s official listing explains that it was paid for by the Grand Master himself, by selling the island’s brushwood and from the profits made by the farmers who had resettled there. The site chosen stood about 80 metres above the sea.

The job was twofold. It kept watch over the channel between Gozo and Malta, which the Ministry for Gozo says had been a pirates’ haunt in the Middle Ages, with raiders hiding in the coastal caves. It was also part of the early tower system the Order set up for defence and communication between the Citadel in Gozo and Mdina, and it later became a key link in the chain of coastal towers. Across the water stands the Red Tower in Mellieħa, and I like to think of the pair as two parts of the same system.

The Ministry for Gozo adds a detail I find very human. Comino was so lonely a posting that the Order sent errant knights to man the tower as a punishment.

What it’s like, inside and out

The tower is square in plan, with a turret at each corner. According to VisitMalta, the main body is twelve metres high and sits on a plinth of about eight, with a three-metre strip along the top of the plinth so defenders could move quickly to any point under threat. The walls are about six metres thick, and the four turrets are topped with battlements.

Comino led a double life in those centuries. VisitMalta’s listing for St Marija Bay explains that under the Knights the island was both a hunting and recreation ground and part of the islands’ coastal watchtower defences. For the rest of the network of towers and forts, see my guide to forts in Malta.

Is St Mary’s Tower open?

I’ll be straight with you here. Neither VisitMalta’s official listing nor the Ministry for Gozo’s Comino guide publishes opening hours or an entry price, and I won’t give you days I can’t back up. What the Ministry does say is that the climb is worth it for the panoramic sea views and a peek into the island’s past.

My advice is to walk up regardless and treat the interior as a bonus if you find it open. From outside you already get the whole tower and the channel, with Malta on one side, Gozo on the other and the Blue Lagoon on Comino below. The whole area is protected, too, since Comino, Cominotto and the surrounding islets form a 294.64-hectare Natura 2000 site.

Monte Cristo and island life

The other reason plenty of people climb up is the cinema. The tower played the Château d’If in The Count of Monte Cristo, as both the Ministry for Gozo and VisitMalta note, and it’s easy to see why a lonely tower in the middle of the sea made a convincing prison. If you’re into filming locations, the rest are in films shot in Malta.

VisitMalta also points out that Comino was already inhabited in Roman times, though it mattered little until the Knights arrived. It adds that the island is worth a visit all year round, with winter ideal for walkers and photographers, which is exactly when the climb to the tower is most pleasant.

Fitting it into a day on Comino

I’d save it for after an early swim in the lagoon, before the sun gets fierce. Comino has no roads or shops, so bring water and a hat. The Ministry for Gozo puts a full circuit of the island at about three hours, and the tower is the stop that gives the walk its point. Boats take about 15 minutes from Mġarr on Gozo and about 35 from Ċirkewwa. Everything else is in my guide to Comino island.