Visit a Maltese Festa – for food, festivities and fireworks

Get into a festive mood as we visit a Maltese festa, to enjoy the Maltese food specialties and spectacular firework finale. If you want to rub shoulders with the locals, and experience some authentic local culture, then Malta has much to offer, especially if you’re lucky enough to stumble into a Maltese fiesta.

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The fiesta of St Margaret on Gozo

Each year, every single town in Malta celebrates the patron saint of their parish by throwing a fiesta – or village feast. But wanting to check out the fiesta of one of the smaller villages, where the festivities would be more personal, I bid the shores of Malta’s main island farewell and headed for Gozo.

Malta’s smaller sister island seems generally less developed and far more peaceful. Once there, I made Sannat my destination. This quiet village, perched on Gozo’s southern coast, throw their fiesta in honor of St. Margaret on the fourth Sunday in July every year, and as a destination in itself, it certainly is beautiful.

The limestone crags of the Ta’Cenc plateau providing spectacular views across a turquoise ocean. This is one of the best hiking destinations in Malta. Dozens of trails, abounding in flora and fauna, wind their way along the sea-cliff edges and down the rugged gorge of Hanzira Valley. Simply stunning.

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Fiesta preparations at Sannat

However, while there’s certainly more than enough to see and do in Sannat at anytime of the year, to arrive there on their fiesta-day really was the icing on the cake. Like a caterpillar metamorphosing into a vibrant butterfly, the village completely transforms itself over this three day festival.

The villagers, proud of Sannat’s fiesta and hoping to rival neighboring villages, adorn their streets with religious statues and colorful banners and bunting. The church is lavishly decorated with enough fairy-lights to rival the Las Vegas strip.

As night falls, a group of locals carry their statue of St. Margaret on a procession through the streets, with the church-bells ringing in the background and the parishioners following close behind. This is when the party really begins.

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Maltese food for the Fiesta

Sannat’s village brass band, Banda Santa Margerita, gets the music underway and the locals set up their street-side food stalls, offering the perfect opportunity to sample some authentic Maltese food. Most of their cuisine, typically Mediterranean, is based on local produce and seafood, light and fresh for the warm summer evening.

I wolfed down a ftira, flatbread stuffed with tomatoes, olives, capers and anchovies, and a slice of tortatal-lampuki, which is fish baked in a pie with olives, sultanas and walnuts, before hitting the sweet stalls.

The most typical dessert for the village fiesta is qubbajt, Maltese nougat flavoured with almonds or hazelnuts. It was the Torta tat-Tamal that really got me hooked: date tart with cocoa, walnuts, and orange zest. Worth every calorie.

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Festival fireworks on the Piazza Santa Margarita

With a full stomach, I headed over to Piazza Santa Margarita to watch the evening’s final set of entertainment: a fireworks display. Catherine Wheels the size of houses whirled and whizzed. Rockets shot this way and that, pounding our eardrums.

Hundreds of fireworks erupted all at once, emblazoning the night sky with a rainbow of colour. And back at the opulently adorned church, the ringing bells reach their crescendo as the statue of St. Margaret is returned home for another year, until the next fiesta.

All this, accompanied by the sounds of local children shrieking with delight as the final firework explodes overhead, illuminating the village below, makes my trip completely worthwhile. The fiesta may not be your typical example of nightlife in Malta, but it certainly was one party I’ll never forget.

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