St Paul's Bay

Overview

St Paul’s Bay (San Pawl il-Baħar) is Malta’s largest seaside resort area and, on the 2021 census, the country’s most populous locality. The name covers several places at once: an old village at the head of the bay, the purpose-built holiday zones of Buġibba and Qawra on the promontory east of it, the hillside of Xemxija, and the inland settlements of Burmarrad, Wardija and San Martin, all under one local council across 14.47 square kilometres.

The growth curve is steep. The 1901 census counted 185 residents in a fishing village whose working life turned on the Veċċja port at the bay head. The 2011 census recorded 16,395 people and the 2021 census 32,042. By July 2024 the National Statistics Office estimate stood at 38,844, of whom 23,897 were foreign nationals, and the June to September total, residents and hotel guests together, is reckoned at about 60,000.

What that means on the ground is Malta’s densest concentration of inexpensive beds, a seafront promenade running the length of the built-up coast, a bus terminus serving most of the island, and almost none of the Baroque architecture the country is known for. If you have come for Valletta or Mdina, this is a base rather than a destination; if you have come for two weeks of sun and sea with a supermarket five minutes away, it does that job better than anywhere else in Central and Northern Malta.

The older claim is in the name. Acts of the Apostles describes Paul being shipwrecked on Malta on his way to Rome, usually dated to around AD 60, and tradition places the wreck on St Paul’s Islands at the western entrance to the bay, where a statue of the Apostle erected in 1844 still stands. Archaeology has since complicated that tradition: Roman anchors recovered off neighbouring Salina Bay, among them the largest Roman lead anchor stock found anywhere, point to Salina as the likelier site.

Neighbourhoods

St Paul’s Bay proper is the head of the inlet and the oldest part: the Veċċja fishing shore, the parish church built in 1617 and restored after heavy bomb damage in the Second World War, and Wignacourt Tower at the water’s edge. It is the only stretch that still reads as a Maltese village rather than a holiday development, and its seafront restaurants look across to the islands.

Buġibba is the centre of gravity for visitors. It grew from the 1960s onwards and is now hotels, apartments, restaurants, pubs, night clubs and a casino around one square, Misraħ il-Bajja, a few streets back from the water; it is also a long-standing base for students on English language courses.

Qawra occupies the promontory to the northeast, with hotels lined along the coast road and holiday apartments filling the blocks behind. It ends at Qawra Point, the tower, and views over Salina Bay.

Xemxija climbs the western side of the bay. Roman remains of a road, baths and rock-cut beehives have been found here, and cart ruts survive on the Wardija Ridge behind, the crossing towards Golden Bay.

Burmarrad and Salina are the inland and southern edges: farmland and salt pans rather than holiday blocks.

See & do

The aquarium

The Malta National Aquarium on Triq it-Trunciera in Qawra is the area’s one large paid attraction, built for families and for afternoons when the wind is up. It opens daily from 10:00 to 20:00, last entry 19:30, and charges €16.90 for adults, €10.90 for children aged 4 to 12 and €13.90 for over-60s; entry after 16:00 drops to €13.90, €8.90 and €10.90, and under-4s go free but still need a ticket from the desk.

Two towers

Wignacourt Tower stands above the bay head, its first stone laid on 10 February 1610. It was the first of the six Wignacourt towers, and because Garzes Tower on Gozo was demolished in 1848 it is now the oldest surviving watchtower in Malta. Din l-Art Ħelwa has held guardianship since 2003, restored it in 2014 and 2015, and shows a small collection on Maltese fortification inside. It opens Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 13:00 and on the first Sunday of each month, entry €2. At the far end of the promenade, Qawra Tower was completed in 1638 with a battery added in 1715; the tower is now a restaurant and the battery holds its swimming pool, which tells you most of what you need to know about how this coast has been treated.

Prehistory in a hotel garden

Buġibba Temple was built in the Tarxien phase, around 2800 BC, on what is now the boundary between Buġibba and Qawra. Themistocles Zammit found it in 1925, and a hotel was later built around it, so the ruins sit beside the swimming pools. Two carved blocks came out of the digs, one an altar and one with fish cut into two faces; both are in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.

Salt pans and reedbeds

Under water

Diving is the strongest reason to choose this coast over a prettier one. The Imperial Eagle, one of the old Malta to Gozo ferryboats, lies on sand at 42 metres about 300 metres northeast of Qawra Point; close by stands a 13-tonne statue of Christ, moved there in May 2000 after being sunk near St Paul’s Islands and blessed by Pope John Paul II in 1990. Shore dives also run off Qawra Point itself.

Excursion boats work the Buġibba jetty in season for trips around the bay, out to the islands and on to Comino and the Blue Lagoon; operators and prices change, so compare the boards on the quay rather than booking blind.

Food & drink

Eating here is a volume business. The promenade and the square carry a long line of places with laminated multi-language menus, all-day breakfasts and pizza, priced for people staying two weeks rather than eating out once. That is the honest baseline, worth knowing before you arrive expecting the cooking of Marsaxlokk.

The better odds are at the two ends. Around the bay head, the restaurants facing the old fishing shore do fish, and the boats that supply them are moored in front of you. At the far end of the walk, Qawra Tower and its 1715 battery are now a restaurant and lounge bar, an unusual room to eat in.

For everyday Maltese food, look inland to the pastizzi counters and bakeries in the residential streets rather than the seafront: ricotta or pea pastizzi, ftira sandwiches, rabbit on the sit-down menus. Self-catering is the local norm because most of the accommodation stock is apartments, and buying fish and produce yourself is often the best meal you will have here.

Nightlife

Buġibba Square is where the evening happens, and it is the loud, cheap, unpretentious end of the Maltese night: bars, night clubs and a casino within a few minutes of each other, with restaurants spilling onto the pavements around them. Qawra runs on the same fuel, and the area is well known on the island for pubs showing British football.

Expect language students, families and package guests rather than a club scene. The big rooms and late finishes are in Paceville, in Sliema and St Julian’s, reached directly on route 212 or TD13.

Getting home afterwards is straightforward: night routes N11, N48 and N212 all terminate at Buġibba, and night fares are €3.00 rather than the daytime €2.00 in winter or €2.50 in summer.

When to go

Late April to mid-June and September to mid-October are the best windows: warm sea, manageable crowds and rates below the July and August peak. High summer is hot, full and loud. Winter is quiet and cheap, with many bars closed and a real chance of rain.

At the reference point used for these normals, August is the warmest month with a mean daily high of 28.4 °C and lows near 24.4 °C, February the coolest at 14.6 °C by day and 11.8 °C at night. Rain is concentrated in a short wet season: 67.5 mm in November and 71.7 mm in December against 0.4 mm in July, with the autumn switch in September (34.1 mm) and October (50.3 mm).

The sea matters more than the air here, because there is no shade on the rocks and swimming is the point. Malta has the highest average annual sea temperature in Europe at about 20 °C: 15 to 16 °C from January to April, above 20 °C from June to November, peaking near 26 to 27 °C in mid-August and still around 22 °C in early November, which is why the swimming season runs later here than most people expect.

One caution for the shoulder season: the bay faces northeast, and on windy days the rock lidos are unusable while the sheltered south of the island is fine.

Getting there

Everything arrives at the Buġibba bus terminal, which has a sales office, ticket machines and real-time screens, five minutes from the square.

• From Malta International Airport: route 214 via Mosta, Rabat and Santa Luċija, or the faster tallinja Direct TD1 via Mellieħa and Ċirkewwa.
• From Valletta: routes 31, 45 or 48, or TD13.
• From St Julian’s and Sliema: 212 or TD13 to Buġibba; 222 and 225 also run to St Paul’s Bay.
• From Mellieħa: 221, 222 or TD1.
• From Rabat and Mdina: 186 via Mosta and Attard.

Fares are paid on board in cash or by contactless card and last two hours: €2.00 on day routes in winter, €2.50 in summer, €3.00 on night and tallinja Direct routes, €3.50 on TD1. For a week’s stay the Explore Flex 7-day pass at €27, or the shareable 12-journey card at €19, beats paying per trip.

Driving is on the left, and the coast road through Buġibba and Qawra is slow and short of parking in summer.

Getting around

The promenade is the spine. It runs from Salina Bay round Qawra Point and along to the head of St Paul’s Bay, mostly level and easy, and walking it end to end is the simplest way to understand how the three parts of the town fit together.

For anything beyond that, use the terminal. Route 223 runs west to Golden Bay via Qawra and Mġarr; 186 goes inland to Mosta, for the Mosta Rotunda, and on to Rabat and Mdina; 31, 45 and 48 reach Valletta by different inland routes.

For Gozo and Comino, take route 221 or 222 north to Ċirkewwa, where both services terminate at the ferry quay, and cross from there. The same buses pass Mellieħa and the turning for Popeye Village.

Swimming access is off the rocks: flat slabs for lying on, entry ladders at intervals, deep clear water. The exception is the Buġibba perched beach on Dawret il-Gżejjer, 2,000 square metres of sand laid over the rock, the first of its kind in Malta, with platforms down to the sea including one usable by wheelchair users. It and Qawra Point both hold Blue Flag status.

Where to stay

This is the cheapest large concentration of beds in Malta, and the reason most visitors come. The stock runs from self-catering apartments through mid-range hotels to full holiday complexes, most of it built from the 1960s onwards on the Buġibba and Qawra promontory.

Be clear-eyed about what you are booking. The architecture is package-holiday concrete rather than Maltese townhouse, several blocks stand between any given hotel and the water, construction is a constant on a locality whose population has doubled in a decade, and there is no natural sand: the shore is rock, with flat slabs for sunbathing and ladders down into deep water at intervals.

Against that, the practical case is strong: a short walk from a supermarket, the bus terminus and the promenade, rates that undercut anywhere else on the island, and better-looking bases such as Mellieħa costing more and giving you fewer buses. Book early for July and August.

Practical info

Money and language. The currency is the euro. Maltese and English are both official and both are spoken everywhere in the resort area, along with a good deal of Italian.

Getting help. The local council for the whole locality can be reached on +356 21585888, and the locality’s postcodes all begin SPB.

Petty theft. Worth knowing rather than worrying about. In 2020 St Paul’s Bay recorded the highest number of reported thefts of any Maltese locality, 423 out of 4,037 nationally, partly a function of being the biggest and busiest locality in the country, but still a reason to lock apartment doors and not leave bags on the rocks while you swim.

Driving. Malta drives on the left. Parking in Buġibba and Qawra is tight from June to September, and the bus terminal is central enough that a hire car is a liability if you are staying in the resort itself.

Opening hours to plan around. The aquarium runs to 20:00 and is the one sight here that works in the evening; the Wignacourt Tower museum is mornings only, and the Simar reserve is shut all summer.