A day in Gozo

The island of Gozo lies a short distance north of Malta. The soil has more clay than Malta, so it retains water better and the island is greener and less arid.
 
We took the ferry across from the port of Cirkewwa to Mgarr, in the south-east of Gozo

From where we were taken on a one-day tour of the island. There was obviously a great deal that we didn't see, but there was plenty to encourage later visits.

Gozo, like Malta, has amazing structures built in the Neolithic period. In Gozo we were shown the Ggantija temples, erected between 3600 and 3000 B.C., which makes them older than Stonehenge. They consist of walls of enormous megaliths, within which are altars of softer stone cut into slabs.

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The interior was once plastered and painted. It appears that cattle were sacrificed here. Some centuries later, the temples were abandoned and forgotten, and only rediscovered in the early 19th century. They were named "Ggantija" in the local belief that only giants could have built such massive structures!


Gozo and Malta were occupied by the Arabs for several centuries, before being conquered by the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th century. Eventually the islands came under the rule of Spain.     With the rise of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in the early16th century, the islands came under great pressure. In 1522 the ferocious Arab corsair Dragut devastated Gozo, carrying away all the people he could catch as slaves.

The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Hospitallers, were an order of fighting monks established in the aftermath of the First Crusade. When the crusader states were finally destroyed, they established themselves at Rhodes, from where their galleys wreaked havoc on Turkish shipping. Infuriated by this, the great Sultan, Sulemain the Magnificent, resolved to destroy them, but the Knights put up such a stout defence that in 1522, after several months of siege, the survivors were allowed to retire in good order. They were homeless for a while; but then in 1530 the Emperor Charles V granted the Malta and Gozo, in return for the annula tribute of a falcon (as in the legendary movie, "The Maltese Falcon"). From their new home, the Knights continued to annoy the Turks, but were able to survive, just, the great Turkish attack of 1565 (I will describe this in a later post) 


The chief city of Gozo, in the centre of the island, is nowadays known as Victoria, in memory of the British queen, who visited and loved the place. It consists of a citadel, strongly fortified by the Knights after the great siege by the Turks in 1565, within which there is a cathedral and other buildings 

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Below the citadel is a town called Rabat, which is simply the Arabic word for a suburb

We saw this piece of scratched graffiti, showing a ship of this period.

   From the citadel, there is a panoramic view of almost the whole of the island.

The Knights also first built this public wash-house, on the road from Rabat to Xlendi.

Dwejra is on the western coast of Gozo. Here we find the "Inland Sea"; a crater into which the sea flows through a fissure in the cliff. Little boats ferry visitors through this to the open water.

The cliffs inside have colourful lichens, which unfortunately didn't come out well on my pictures.

Also at Dwejra is the "Fungus Rock", where the Knights discovered a rare plant believed to have marvellous medicinal properties, and which they therefore had guarded to prevent any unauthorised access. (It is actually not a fungus at all, but a parasitic plant). The other famous sight here; the "Azure Window", a spectacular natural rock arch; sadly collapsed into the sea in 2017.

We stopped for lunch at Xlendi, a pleasant little bay.

In conclusion, Gozo is well worth a visit!