I will inevitably be talking, in this piece, about how tourists see our history, but I am not taking this stance to say we have to put up a show for the money. Socio-economic gains from historical sights is a valid argument for the country’s status and livelihood, yet my tourist’s perspective is informed after writing the Rough Guide for Malta and I had to see Malta’s history as outsiders see it, and an outside perspective is at times more clear-sighted, more aware of strengths and flaws. As I slipped into the shoes of a tourist I found a country that submerges its history, a country that makes it frustrating for the visitor to appreciate and penetrate. For the visitor, much of Malta remains hidden.

When I met Tom Huntington, editor of the American magazine Historic Traveller, he said: ‘Wow! This is amazing. There is history everywhere.’ Malta cast an indelible spell on him, and it does on me too, but that is only because Tom and I have researched the history in considerable depth. A casual visitor, by contrast, will find it hard to appreciate the historical sights. From Mnajdra Temples to St John’s Co-Cathedral, the sights are largely unlabelled, non-illustrated, and you search in vain for legends of any sort. What exactly should one be seeing? That’s the puzzling question that visitors ask, and they find no answers unless they go out of their way to find out.

To this end, a lot can be done. Take Mnajdra Temples, for example. I would start by enclosing it under a protective tent, do the things to stop or slow down its deterioration (protection from wind and water erosion, the ravages of plants rooting in the rocks and soil, and so on) and designate the surrounding plateau as an Archeological Park under a mantle of strict protection. Then I would build a centre that would tell the story of Malta’s Neolithic Culture, the worship in the temples, the artefacts that were found in each temple and their cultural symbolism, plus a virtual reality experience of the temples – a tour of the temples in their heyday, recreated intact with their roofed dome, and illustrating how the South Temple is calibrated with sunrise on the solstices. To finance such a project, it’s only fair to put up the entry fee. In the UK, for example, it costs about Lm14 to visit Stonehenge, while in Malta it costs Lm1 to see Mnajdra Temples, which is 2,000 years older than Stonehenge, and which is more impressive, its execution more sophisticated. If a visitor had to pay Lm5 to visit Mnajdra Temples, and the experience of the visit would be made complete by a virtual reality tour, Lm5 would be very well spent.

Bear with me if I have leapt ahead in the previous paragraph, because while I am talking about enriching the experience of Malta’s history, the situation on the ground – the imminent problem – is the state of indifferent neglect. Most of Malta’s historical sights are simply left to rot. Why is Fort St Elmo, for example, only opened on Sundays? Why is Fort Ricasoli, the largest fort built by the Knights of Malta, abandoned, shuttered, and left to crumble?

Worse still, in some cases the situation has deteriorated rather than improved. Why has the Verdala Palace been shut for visitors? Fort St Angelo, too, used to be open for visitors regularly: now it’s only open erratically, on arbitrary occasions, and imagine my frustration when, presented with such an impressive fort, I could not even specify days and times in the Rough Guide when Fort St Angelo is open. All I could do to direct my readers is to instruct them to call the Malta Tourism Authority for more information – but if you are visiting a country for two weeks, and your time is limited, will you play a game of hide-and-seek to see a place the country itself doesn’t consider worthy of protection and promotion? As politicians haggle on how much of Fort St Elmo to hand over to the Knights and on what terms, the shameful irony is that the same politicians are leaving the same fort to disintegrate.

During my research I bumped into similar disappointments day after day. The Rough Guides get under the skin of a country from the anthropological and cultural perspective of a sophisticated tourist who likes to experience the sights with tangible profundity, not see something from the seat of a bus or be told what to think in an organised tour, which is often shallow, inaccurate and skimps on the details that bring a particular sight to life. One of the things I attempted to do, for example, is to present the fortifications built by the Knights from their most impressive point of view. So I focused on the Cottonera Lines, the largest project of military architecture undertaken by the Knights, a semi-circular heavy wall of zigzagging bastions jutting in glory and prestige, pierced by magnificent gates, and designed – from a European perspective – in the exotic Baroque architecture. What better way, I thought, to experience the Cottonera Lines than stroll along their length over their ramparts and in the process enjoy some of the most romantic panoramas of the Grand Harbour region? When I attempted the walk, however, I found my way blocked by the shabby, mostly illegal, shacks that squatters have appended to the wall’s parapet, and I found my well-being threatened by savage guard dogs. I could only leg it and tell my readers that, yes, the only way they could enjoy the Cottenera Lines is from the window of a bus.

I can only speak of four rare cases where historical sights have been recreated to bring out their best. First, the Lascaris War Rooms. Second, the recently opened Air Raid Shelter in Mgarr, where the commentary and the props stir a sense of claustrophobic melancholy in their presentation of crippling shelter life. Third, the Hypogeum, and here the Museums Department has done an excellent job to protect and illustrate, in an educated tour and with the aid of complementary lighting system, the Hypogeum. The fourth sight, Fort Rinella, is a success story that can be repeated in all the neglected historical remains in Malta. When Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna took over the care of Fort Rinella, it was half buried under rubble and its fabric moulding into dust by erosion – historical connoisseurs thought it would be impossible to attract visitors to this far-flung sight of secondary importance. FWA cleaned up the fort, recreated its living quarters, reconstructed some of its guns from original designs, and started conducting an in-depth and well-researched tour for every few visitors that turn up. Last year about 20,000 visitors turned up, and in the way one experiences the fort, Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna have elevated a secondary sight into one of the most delightful places to visit. That this is so, however, makes a stark statement on the extent of ruin and oblivion that the prime historical sights are lost in.

Victor Paul Borg is a freelance writer based in London and can be contacted at victor@borg.tf.

His column appears here weekly.