Mellieħa

The name Mellieħa comes from the Semitic root m-l-ħ, meaning salt, probably after the Punic-Roman salt pans at Mellieħa Bay, on a site now occupied by the Għadira Nature Reserve. People lived in caves here in antiquity, and the cave settlements continued under Byzantine rule before being abandoned in the early Middle Ages. A cave consecrated as a church became the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mellieħa, a parish church by the early 15th century and a place of pilgrimage ever since.

The village still existed in 1436 but was abandoned soon afterwards, because the north of Malta was no longer safe from raids by Muslim corsairs, and it stayed empty through the early years of Hospitaller rule. The Knights defended the coast instead: Saint Agatha's Tower, the Red Tower, was built on Marfa Ridge in 1647–49, and the smaller Għajn Ħadid and Armier towers in 1658. The sanctuary was rebuilt from the late 16th century.

Mellieħa became a parish again in 1844, and it began to grow after the British encouraged settlement by granting leases to local people. The Parish Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary went up in stages in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Just before the Second World War Fort Campbell was built at Selmun and a lookout fort on Mellieħa Hill, and a tunnel complex was dug beneath the village as a bomb shelter during the war. Since then it has also become a popular tourist resort.

The parish and its sanctuary are at the centre of local identity. The sanctuary's altarpiece is a Byzantine-style fresco of the Virgin, and local tradition links the cave church to antiquity or the early Middle Ages; a number of notable people have come here on pilgrimage over the centuries. The hilltop parish church is said to have been built with the help of the villagers themselves.

The landscape is part of the culture too. The council's area takes in the hamlets of Manikata and Selmun, and much of its coast is protected: the Majjistral Nature and History Park, declared in 2007, covers 6 kilometres of coastline that forms part of the European Natura 2000 network, and the Għadira wetland is managed with BirdLife Malta, whose volunteers lead guided visits.

Film has left its mark. Popeye Village, built as the set for the 1980 film Popeye starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, survives at Anchor Bay as an open-air museum and fun park. Sailing and diving are popular, with Ċirkewwa known for its wreck dives.

Mellieħa had 14,232 people in July 2024, of whom 4,920 were foreign nationals — a large village by Maltese standards. Its local council also covers Manikata and forms part of the Northern Region; after the 2024 local elections Gabriel Micallef of the Nationalist Party became mayor for the 2024–2029 term.

Mellieħa is a popular destination in the summer months. The town is known for its sandy beaches, its natural environment and Popeye Village, while the hilltop centre keeps the rhythm of a parish town, with its main street, square and church, and the steep slope between the two is climbed by bus as often as on foot. Ċirkewwa, at the northern tip of the island and within the town's limits, is the departure point for the car ferries to Mġarr on Gozo, and summer boat trips to Comino and diving excursions also leave from there. To the east, the Selmun peninsula and Mistra Bay mark the edge of the town's territory, with St Paul's Islands about 80 metres offshore.

Mellieħa's food is that of Malta, with a seaside emphasis. Some restaurants serve seafood and Maltese specialities such as fried rabbit; rabbit stew, stuffat tal-fenek, is often identified as the national dish, and aljotta is a fish broth with garlic, herbs and tomatoes. During Lent, fish such as lampuki and whitebait were traditionally eaten, along with stuffed artichokes, qaqoċċ mimli.

Everyday snacks are the same as across the islands: pastizzi, savoury pastries filled with ricotta or curried peas, and ħobż biż-żejt, crusty Maltese bread rubbed with tomato, drizzled with olive oil and filled with tuna, olives, capers, onion, bigilla and ġbejna, the small sheep's-milk cheese. To drink there is Kinnie, the bittersweet brown soft drink made from bitter oranges and extracts of wormwood, first produced by the Farsons brewery in 1952 and drunk straight or mixed with alcohol.

Cheese and bread connect the town to its countryside. Ġbejna is a small round cheese made from sheep's milk, salt and rennet, and most of the sheep's milk produced in Malta goes into it; it goes into bread fillings and into fritters, sfineġ, a traditional Lenten dish. Maltese bread itself is a crusty sourdough, usually baked in wood ovens.