Comino is three and a half square kilometres of bare limestone between Malta and Gozo. It has no cars, no shops and almost no permanent residents.
For most of the year it is close to empty. For a few hours a day in summer it is the busiest water in the country.
There is nothing on it
No roads worth the name, no village, no supermarket. A handful of people live there.
Everything else is rock, scrub and coast. It is a Natura 2000 protected site and a bird sanctuary, which is part of why it has stayed that way.
Take water and food with you. In the off season there may be nothing open at all.
The Blue Lagoon is a channel between two islands
The Blue Lagoon is the strip of water between Comino and the islet of Cominotto. The bottom is white sand, and the sand gives the water its colour. It earns its reputation and it also gets extremely crowded.
You have to book before you go
Anyone setting foot at the Blue Lagoon needs to book a free slot in advance, whether they arrive on a commercial boat or their own. You get a QR code and you show it at the access point.
Turning up without one does not work. The current rules and slot times are on the Comino page.
Go early or go late
The day boats arrive mid-morning and leave in the late afternoon. Before and after that it is a different place. If you can only go in the middle of the day, expect company.
The rest of the island
Most visitors never leave the lagoon. Santa Marija Bay and San Niklaw Bay are both a short walk away and both are quieter.
Santa Marija Tower sits on the south coast and was built by the Knights in the early 1600s. The walk out to it takes about half an hour.
There are also boats that go round the island rather than stopping at the lagoon. More on what runs and from where.
