Sundays.: Malta + Gozo. The Rest Of.

By day three, we were bandaged up, on the mend and ready to set the trip right. We swapped the two scooters, for one car, which ended up been the price of one scooter, and finally begun exploring Gozo in all her beauty. We took to the maddening roads and explored tiny villages, gigantic dome chapels that protruded out far above the rest of the town, found little cobbled ally ways to get lost in, and enjoyed lunch in the sun.
Trying our tourists hat on, we visited the Ggantija temples. The temples date back to the Neolithic age of 3600-2500BC, which makes them more then 5500 years old and older then the pyramids of Egypt. They are believed to be the remains of a fertility cult and place of worship. Pulling down our sun-hats we wandered around the remains trying to grasp some sort of concept of how miraculous and, well, old, the pieces were while the heavy heat beckoned us to head towards the coast again. We headed out to Azures Window next, which is a giant natural limestone arch near Dwejra Bay.

After we spent the afternoon touring around some of Europe's few sandy beaches before heading home to light the BBQ and enjoy a few beers as the sun eventually faded.

The next day we made a bee line for the port to catch a 10 euro (round trip) boat over to the infamous Blue Lagoon on Comino Island. The ferries only run through certain hours each day, meaning the island much quieter after hours. The usually sandy bays leave the pristine clear water sparkling and offer breathtaking visibility. We wandered around the island, trying to escape the wild tourist crowd and thumping banana boat music by the wharf for a little solitude and beach space and found ourselves following the edge of incredible limestone cliffs that sheltered the bright aqua waters, which added to their clarity. The island offers a few trashy food trucks for the many many UK folk and an up market resort on the opposite side. There is beautiful abandoned barracks and a church just north of St Mary's watchtower which is made of limestone and overlooks sea.

The final day, we set aside for Malta underestimating her size and how much there was to see and do there. We booked a car online finding this was actually our cheapest option and picked it up once arriving. Starting at "Popeyes Village" near the harbour, which sat on the edge of a truly incredible green bay before making our way to the beaches of Ghanjn Tuffieha and Golden Bay for lunch. Afterwards we made a truly painful journey to try and find the all natural St Peters Pool which had been recommended by some friends and quickly found that the maze of the island without any map can become time consuming and rather stressful. The huge dusty sand stone cities spread themselves widely across the island and we found ourselves bouncing along one after another, desperate to escape some crazy traffic and hit a highway. We eventfully found ourselves circling the city of Cottonera.

Although the tension levels were somewhat high, having been trapped in the mysterious and maze like city I couldn't help but find the place whimsically beautiful. We eventually gave in to her wrath, found a park and took a walk around down by the harbour before looping back up through the stale muggy one way streets of stacked cutesy buildings. The harbour walk was very beautiful and showcased a postcard worthy view of the capital Valetta across the channel. We found ourselves hanging over the railing people watching as the locals sun baked and took a dip down on the rocks. Along the coastline were big concrete pools that enclosed sea water into a pool like setting and smaller insets of concrete squares trapping the sea water, which almost looked like little spa's to enjoy. Finally, as time got away from us, we jumped back in the car, and made our way out to, what we thought was, St Peters pool, for a much needed dip off the rocks at 6pm while the jagged cliffs arched over us capturing the evening sun.

Our final few hours found us in Valetta walking the old town. Valetta has to be up there with one of my favourite old town quarters. Almost completely closed off and bustling with atmosphere, shops and restaurants every which way. After scouring many menus we finally found a sweet wee Maltese style kitchen and enjoyed some delicious cuisine before heading to the airport and saying our goodbyes.

Over all, with all the mishaps included, Gozo and Malta proved themselves well worth the effort. The mind blowing waters, wild terrain, unique dusty dome filled cities and most of all incredible company made our trip a VERY memorable one. So goodbye and thank you to that heavenly place, and to our friends; see you again soon, for our next joint adventure- Turkey. x