Heritage and crime are often both invisible... until you step on them. Thrilling rewards come paired with burning disappointments when out walking in the Maltese countryside. At this time of year, the lush greenery, pushing out from every cranny, covers a medley of environmental sins on the ground.
Sunlight touches the land with warm colours after a damp night. Webs carefully spun by unseen spiders drip with watery jewels in morning mist.
Pausing to choose which route to take from the square in front of St Paul's parish church in Rabat, a visit to Binġemma is one of several options. The local council carries a helpful link describing this walk on its website. Sadly, reports of fierce dogs and the sorry state of an interpretation board discourage any idea of visiting Is-Simblija medieval site.
The road to Santa Katerina seems an attractive choice, doubling back to return by way of Lunzjata, perched on a natural fault. Here, the land falls away steeply in a two-storey drop to the sweeping valley below.
Engineered landscapes of the quarry at Misraħ is-Suffara contrast sharply with the natural beauty. Mounds of quarry debris piled high in breach of permit conditions are covered in winter's green carpet despite long-standing enforcement orders to remove them.
A new planning application for industrial garages on this site vouches to "blend with the existing landscape". The visual disturbance of these mounds has been tolerated for so long that they now provide the developer a convenient background on which to impose more countryside development.
Offsetting this sorry state of affairs is the prospect of a visit to one of Malta's lesser known heritage sites. Għar l-Iburdan, a troglodyte settlement of the late Roman era, was investigated in the 1970s by students from the University of New York under the supervision of Rita Virzì Hägglund, an authority on lost villages in the Mediterranean. The large cave complex with several entrances has been described, in reports held by the Museum of Archeology as "complesso ipogeico", a hypogeum-like structure.
The biggest colony of Lesser Horseshoe bats found in the Maltese islands now make use of it for their winter roost. The cave is still accessible with some difficulty and not without risk. A visit during September would be the least disturbing time for the bats.
Turning right off the paved road, one follows the northern edge of a quarry until a stone hut comes into sight. It is a modern copy of a much older one described in its time as "an impressive girna made of sizable stones".
When the original girna collapsed after quarry activity edged too near, the authorities decided (rather late in the day) that rural heritage should be preserved and the girna reconstructed. The intention of the Planning Authority of the day was to retain a visible landmark that would prevent the quarry inching any closer to the cave.
A rural stone hut was hastily put up, but it was hardly a faithful reproduction of the older model since smaller stones were used. Worse still, in its rebuilding, somehow the location of the replacement girna was shifted even closer to the cave.
Digging activity has caused collapses in the cave over the years and even broke into the back of the cave system at several different points. Observers note that the damage is conveniently concealed by mounds of aggregate which flow into the cave and continue to threaten it.
Walking away with a shake of the head, visitors may turn right into a lane opposite the chapel. Strolling past an open reservoir and through a eucalyptus grove, car seats can be seen neatly stacked in piles. After climbing a rocky stairway cut into the cliff at Lunzjata, it becomes evident that two car seats have been recycled as furniture to serve a hunter's hide on the cliff top.
Just before reaching an old stone arch near the Marian centre parking lot, a stench of burnt plastic fills the air. Here, on the cliff edge at L-Irdum tal-Lunzjata, fresh tyre tracks point to a scrap heap poised at the top of a hell-hole of discarded plastic car-parts, some half-burnt. Whoever gathers this grizzly collection of dashboards and other selected motor junk has no qualms at setting off a little bonfire, then tipping it over the cliff.
Surely this is not what the authorities had in mind when the end-of-life directive for recycling of car parts was transposed into local law. Illegal disposal of car parts is being practised clandestinely and at great expense to the environment.
Back in Rabat, the shade trees have all been ripped from the square in front of the parish church. Smaller potted trees are to take their place in the name of embellishment and landscaping contracts.