Golden Bay

Overview

Golden Bay, in Maltese Ir-Ramla tal-Mixquqa, and Għajn Tuffieħa are two sandy bays on the north-west coast of Malta, separated by a single headland and about 345 m of clay slope and rock. Most people see them as one outing, and the difference between them is the point of coming. A road runs down to the sand at Golden Bay. Għajn Tuffieħa has no road: you walk over the headland and down a long flight of steps, and that single fact keeps the crowds on the other side.

Golden Bay is the serviced one. The bus terminus, the car parks, the public toilets, the kiosks and the watersports hire are all here, the sand slopes gently into the water, and a resort hotel sits on the ridge above the north end. The Malta Tourism Authority calls it the second largest sandy beach in the country and notes that the flat approach suits people with limited mobility and small children, which is not true of its neighbour.

Għajn Tuffieħa, often called Riviera, is about 290 m of red-brown sand under clay slopes, reached down a steep staircase or a rough gravel track. It has a café at the bottom and very little else.

Both bays currently hold the Blue Flag. The award scheme’s own site data, published as a layer dated 28 May 2026, lists thirteen certified Maltese sites for this season, with Golden Bay managed by the Malta Tourism Authority and Għajn Tuffieħa Bay managed by Mġarr among them. Behind both, the ground rises into Il-Majjistral Nature and History Park, which is why this stretch of Central and Northern Malta still looks like open country rather than the built-up coast further east.

History

The spring that named the place

Għajn Tuffieħa means spring of apples, and the spring is the reason anything was ever built here. In 1929 government workers digging to channel fresh water from the valley cut into a Roman bath complex by accident. Excavations that year and the next dated it to the late first and early second centuries AD, and found the full set of rooms, tepidarium, frigidarium and caldarium, plus a large swimming pool and a communal latrine seating no fewer than twelve.

Do not plan a visit. After decades of neglect the site was almost entirely backfilled in 2019 and again in 2021 to preserve what is left, and Heritage Malta says access will be virtual rather than physical.

The towers on the headlands

The square tower on the cliff above the south side of Għajn Tuffieħa was completed in 1637 as the second of the Lascaris towers: 11 m high, two floors of one room each, garrisoned by a captain and three men. It stood in line of sight with Lippija Tower above Ġnejna and Nadur Tower inland, and the chain passed warnings by flag in daylight and by bonfire at night so that the alarm reached the walled city of Mdina when corsairs appeared off this coast. It was restored in 2000 with Din l-Art Ħelwa, is threatened by coastal erosion and was damaged in a storm in 2023. It is not open to the public.

The park behind the sand

Il-Majjistral Nature and History Park was declared by Legal Notice 251 of 2007 in September 2007, taking in the coast from Golden Bay north-west to Il-Prajjet and Ix-Xagħra l-Ħamra. It protects about 6 km of coastline inside a Special Area of Conservation in the Natura 2000 network, and holds over 350 species of wild plant, including orchids and the Mediterranean thyme that turns the rocky ground purple in June. A later agreement between the Environment and Resources Authority and the Heritage Parks Foundation put €375,000 into habitat and woodland restoration, with €360,000 more from private companies for the Barracks zone and dune restoration at Għajn Tuffieħa among the works.

Visiting

Getting there

Four bus routes end at the same terminus above Golden Bay. It is signed Għajn Tuffieħa, stop 1123, which confuses almost everyone, because the bay called Għajn Tuffieħa is over the headland further south.

• 44 from Valletta through Birkirkara, Mosta, Iż-Żebbiegħ and Mġarr: first departure from Valletta 05:45, last 21:15, roughly every 30 minutes between.
• 101 links Ċirkewwa to Ġnejna along the coast, calling at Mellieħa, Popeye Village and Manikata. It is the sparse one: hourly, from about 07:00 to about 22:00.
• 223 from Buġibba through St Paul’s Bay, and 225 from Sliema via St Julian’s, Pembroke and St Paul’s Bay, both roughly every 20 to 30 minutes.

For Għajn Tuffieħa, get off one stop earlier, at Riviera, at the top of the staircase.

Driving is on the left. There is a free surface car park at the top of the Għajn Tuffieħa steps and roadside space around Golden Bay, plus fee car parks that OpenStreetMap records at €3 flat and €1 per hour; treat those prices as indicative and expect everything full by mid-morning on a summer weekend.

Golden Bay

The bay is fully kitted out: a bar and café, free public toilets, sun loungers and umbrellas for hire, diving instruction and powered watersports from jet skis to banana boats. Lifeguards and other beach staff are on duty daily from 15 June to 15 September; the Malta Red Cross, which supplies lifeguards on this coast, gives its own summer season as 1 June to 30 September. Outside those windows the beach is open and unwatched.

Over the headland to Għajn Tuffieħa

The walk from the Golden Bay car parks over the ridge takes about ten minutes, and then the staircase drops to the sand. Nobody agrees on how many steps it is: Wikipedia’s article says 200 in the text and 187 in a photo caption, while OpenStreetMap tags the flight in two sections of 167 and 60. What matters is that the main flight is paved, unlit and has no handrail, so it is a slow climb back in the heat and a real problem with a cool box, a pushchair or bad knees. The rough gravel track is the alternative, and not much gentler.

At the bottom there is a beach restaurant, a coin-operated shower and nothing else. The tourism authority describes the bay as undeveloped and less crowded than Golden Bay, with a snack bar, lounger hire and safety ropes strung along the water. There is almost no shade on the sand and none at all on the steps.

The park, and Ġnejna beyond it

Paths run from both bays into Il-Majjistral park across garigue, clay steppe and dune, past the tower, and on towards Il-Qarraba, the blunt headland that separates Għajn Tuffieħa from the next bay south. Be warned that the park’s own website, majjistral.org, would not load on 4 September 2026 because its security certificate expired in May, so trail maps and opening details have to come from secondary sources.

Ġnejna Bay, about 2 km south, is the natural third stop: sand plus a stretch of flat rock for sunbathing, watersports hire and parking, and by the tourism authority’s own account quieter than either neighbour. Route 101 runs there from the Golden Bay terminus.

Tips

• Stay for the sunset. Both bays face west into open sea, and the Malta Tourism Authority notes that Golden Bay’s evenings draw people out for barbecues on the sand. Check the last bus before you settle in.
• Take the lifeguard season literally. In April a ten-year-old boy was pulled unresponsive from rough water at Golden Bay on a warm, packed afternoon with no lifeguards on duty, because the season had not started. A hot day in May or October is not a supervised day.
• Check the sea before you set out. Malteseislandsweather.com publishes a daily morning list of which Maltese bays are and are not recommended for swimming, flagging rough seas and jellyfish by bay.
• Golden Bay is now a no-smoking beach. Under the Smoking Control on Beaches Regulations, a ban took effect at Golden Bay and at Ramla l-Ħamra in Gozo on 1 January 2026, with a €150 fine for smoking outside the signposted smoking areas.
• Leave the turtles alone. Loggerheads nest on both bays; nests are cordoned off where they lie and sometimes moved when the sea threatens them. Keep away, keep the noise down, and report a sighting to the Environment and Resources Authority on 2292 3500 or Nature Trust Malta on 9999 9505.
• Sunday afternoons are the rowdy slot. The Malta Ranger Unit, which patrols the beach as part of the park, has reported repeated fights and heavy littering at Golden Bay on Sundays from late April onwards and has asked for a stronger police presence. Weekday mornings are a different beach.
• Carry your own water and shade. Between the two bays there is one staircase, no trees and a coin-operated shower. If you want the quiet half, go down to Għajn Tuffieħa early and accept that everything you bring has to come back up the steps.