Popeye Village

Popeye Village sits at the head of Anchor Bay, a pretty inlet on the west side of the Marfa peninsula. The wooden buildings have been kept up (and rebuilt several times), and the site now operates as a low-budget but cheerful theme park: actors playing Popeye and Bluto wander the streets, there is a small swimming area in the bay, mini-golf, and an animation cinema showing clips from the film.

It is unashamedly aimed at families and is fun for younger kids; older travellers may want to come instead for the view of the village from the cliff above (the parking area), which costs nothing. Anchor Bay itself is a fine swimming spot in summer.

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A story
Robin Williams's first major film, the 1980 Robert Altman musical Popeye, was shot here at Anchor Bay over seven months on a custom-built village of twenty rickety wooden buildings. The film was a box-office disappointment and Hollywood quickly moved on; locals expected the set to be torn down. Instead the contractor who built it took it over and ran it as a tourist attraction, and forty years later it is one of Malta's most-visited oddities.

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