The great Baroque parish church crowns the ridge above the town, visible for miles across north Malta. Built between 1881 and 1898 to a design by Maltese architect Giuseppe Bonavia, it is one of the most impressive of the island's many oversized village churches — a single soaring nave, a coffered ceiling painted with scenes from the life of the Virgin, and an altar dressed in red Sicilian marble.
The feast of the Nativity on 8 September is the biggest event of the Mellieha year. The whole town turns out, fireworks are set off across the bay, and a band procession winds up the hill in evening light. If you are here in early September you cannot miss it; if you are here at other times the church itself is well worth a quiet look.