Xwejni Salt Pans

West of Marsalforn the coastal rock is cut into a grid of shallow salt pans running for around three kilometres, some of them worked since the Knights' period and possibly earlier. Seawater is let in and left to evaporate through the summer, and the salt is scraped off by hand into stone stores cut into the cliff behind. Several families still work them, one of them for five generations, and sell the salt from a cave shop on the shore.

What you actually see

• The chequerboard pans - a grid of shallow beds cut into the coastal rock.
• The hand harvest - salt scraped and gathered through the summer months.
• The cliff stores - caves cut into the rock behind for storing the salt.
• The Qolla l-Bajda - the white mushroom-shaped rock beside the pans.

When to go

May to September is the working season; the harvest runs through the summer. Winter fills the pans with rainwater and nothing is produced. Morning and late afternoon light suits photographs.

Honest expectations

Outside the summer season the pans are flooded and nothing is happening. The pans are worked commercially and walking on them damages the beds. The coast road is narrow with limited parking.

Nearby

Marsalforn is east, and Wied il-Ghasri is west.