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Photo: Hamelin de Guettelet, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Two very beautiful stone age temples set on the cliffside of south west Malta and overlooking the nature reserve of Filfla. If you are expecting to see acres of temples, this is not the case, but what you do see is a number of carefully constructed stone rooms and structures which were built around 3000BC. Hagar Qim Temple in the nearest one to the road and access to this site is via a visitor centre. Mnajdra is further down the cliff and there is about a 1-km walk downhill to the temples. This is the older of the two temples with parts dating back to 3600BC. There are some beautiful views over the ocean and towards the little nature reserve island. You can get a bus from the bus Terminal in Valletta straight to the Hagar Qim and Mnjdra temples. The visitor centre also houses a gift shop, a restaurant and other facilities. During the day, buses go through Hagar Qim Park at least once every hour.
Ħaġar Qim is a megalithic temple complex found on the Mediterranean island of Malta, dating from the Ġgantija phase (3600–3200 BC). The Megalithic Temples of Malta are among the most ancient religious sites on Earth, described by the World Heritage Sites committee as "unique architectural masterpieces." In 1992 UNESCO recognized Ħaġar Qim and four other Maltese megalithic structures as World Heritage Sites. V. Gordon Childe, Professor of Prehistoric European Archeology and director of the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London from 1946 to 1957 visited Ħaġar Qim. He wrote, "I have been visiting the prehistoric ruins all round the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, Greece and Switzerland, but I have nowhere seen a place as old as this one."
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