Opposite the Ta’ Pinu sanctuary is Ta’ Għammar hill, a rather steep elevation. Along the winding and rough path to the top, one comes across 14 marble statues that present scenes from the Stations of the Cross starting with the Last Supper of Jesus up to the crucifixion and burial.

It all goes back to the times of the saintly man Frangisk Portelli, whom it is said was asked by the Blessed Virgin of Ta’ Pinu to share the devotion to Christ’s hidden wound – a wound that was caused by the heavy burden of the wooden cross on his shoulder.

By the end of World War II, devotees began making personal pilgrimages to the hilltop as an act of repentance. Eventually, someone proposed to take this a step further and establish the path as a Via Crucis for pilgrims.

The white Carrara marble statues, placed along the path in the early 1980s, were sculpted at Pietra Santa, Italy, on the designs of Alfred Camilleri Cauchi.

Some time ago, several of the marble statues have been shamefully struck by vandals.