Corinne CrawfordToday’s all day adventure was the island of Gozo and I thought if I planned it right and left early enough, I might have time to take the ferry boat that stopped by the Blue Lagoon, apparently the most famous beach spot in Malta. The Blue Lagoon is actually on another small island in between the main island of Malta and Gozo. But I first wanted to see some of the historical and archeological sites on Gozo and if time was getting away from me, I would stop by the “best” beach on Gozo, Ramla Bay. There are lots of options for sight seeing on Gozo, with many tour companies offering everything from buses, ATV’s and jeeps that will take you from place to place. There are also hop on/hop off buses and of course the public transportation buses. All options have the same issue in that all of the roads are like the spokes of a wheel coming out of the central town of Victoria, also known as Rabat to the locals. I researched all of the options and even though I considered some of the tours, I figured I had unlimited rides on the public buses so I opted for that option as a matter of budget.
But first, I had to get to the very north tip of the island to catch the ferry that takes you to the harbor on Gozo. The ferry is scheduled to run every 30 minutes or so starting from very early in the morning. But the first buses to take you from Sliema to Cirkewwa, the harbor on Malta was at a few minutes after 7:00am. That would get me there at about 8:15am and supposedly the ferry left at 8:30am. I walked about halfway of the 8 minute walk from my apartment to the bus stop before I realized that I had left my bus card at the apartment. I had plenty of time before I had to catch the bus so I turned around and grabbed the card and retraced my steps down to the bus stop. And waited. There was supposed to be a bus at 7:08am but 7:15 came and went and after consulting the bus app on my phone it now stated that the next bus I was looking for was scheduled to arrive at 7:28am. Not surprising given my past experiences with the buses on Malta. This gave me time to pop into the coffee/donut shop right by the bus stop to get a mocha and chocolate donut. My stomach was feeling pretty much back to normal although I still was not eating very much. The bus finally arrived more or less on schedule and even though I now was 30 minutes behind, I was on my way to Cirkewwa. When I arrived at the final stop, the harbor where the ferry took off, I did not have to wait long to board the ferry. The ferry was large and took both passengers and vehicles across the small channel to the other island. You don’t have to pay going from Malta to Gozo, you pay the fare only on the return trip. The trip across the channel took about 30 minutes and it was a smooth ride but it was now close to 10am before we reached the other side. I got off the ferry with the other passengers, although it was quite confusing which way to go off the ferry with stairs and hallways seemingly taking you right back to where you started but I followed the crowd and disembarked and immediately went outside to look for the correct bus to take me to the main town, Victoria. The first thing on my to-do list for the island was to visit the old fortress located in the heart of the city, called the Citadel.
The bus stop for the correct bus was located directly out the terminal door and shortly the correct bus pulled up. But the driver didn’t open the doors. He sat in there for a while, then turned off the light indicating the bus number on the front of the bus and actually got off, closing the doors behind him with no explanation to the small crowd waiting to get on the bus. However, it did not take long for another bus with the same number to cruise around and park right behind the first bus, opening its doors inviting us all to hop on. I decided my favorite seat on the bus is the first one directly behind the front doors, not the ones behind the driver but on the other side. This seat is an extra wide seat but not configured as two separate seats so you have plenty of room for you and your bag and no one will sit next to you. The bus drops you off at a central terminal in Victoria and is just a short 10 minute walk to the Citadel. I am so grateful my phone mostly works even without Wi-Fi, although I would find out that the rest of Gozo did not provide much of a signal to allow me to get maps or the bus schedule app. But for that moment, in Victoria, I had clear walking directions on my phone to get me to the Citadel. I had done some research about visiting the Citadel and the overall walled fortress is free to enter and wander around but you can also buy a ticket for just €5 and it includes the informative Visitor center and a few small museums/exhibits within the walls. I liked getting some contextual background for these type of places so I decided to splurge for the ticket, which you buy right at the Visitor Center so that is the first place I explored. It was just a small building with about 5 interactive digitized exhibits going over the history, architectural and cultural significance of the Citadel but I have to say it was very poorly designed for large crowds. Luckily there were not many people in the Visitor Center with me so it did not present a problem but you approached each large touch screen and scrolled though the stories and pictures it was telling. So if you read faster or slower than someone else, it really made it a one person exhibit. I only had to wait in line behind one other lady at one of the screens but thought it was not a great design. As I was finishing the last exhibit, a member of the staff appeared in front of a black curtain that was roped off. He announced that it was almost time for the “show” and moved the rope and pulled back the curtain. Ok. As I walked down the gauze lined hallway with 3 other tourists, ethereal music was playing and floating images of a goddess danced along the walls until another set of doors magically opened and we we entered a room of about 8 benches. We all instinctively took a seat on different benches and narration started along with moving pictures on every wall surrounding us. It told the story of the history of the fortress but focused on one tale of a Portuguese soldier that was so afraid that the conquering army of …. Ok, at this point I can’t remember what time frame we were talking about here, maybe Roman army, maybe Persians, maybe… something else, whatever. Anyway, he was so worried about the conquering army taking his wife and child as prisoners, before he left to die on the battlefield, he slaughtered his own family to spare them this fate. He was heralded as a hero and then the story pretty much ended. Ok. Another set of doors on the opposite side of the room opened and we were deposited out on the walkway to make our way up to the actual Citadel.
I wondered around the grounds and the fortress walls which provided amazing panoramic views of the surrounding city and country side, all the way to the ocean in some directions. I then stopped in to one of the museums my ticket allowed me to enter, a traditional house.
I snaked my way through the interior looking at some of the medieval implements and furnishings on display going up narrow stairs and finding my way back down again. As I stepped out of the door again onto the narrow street, directly across from me was a monument on the wall indicating the spot where the hero from our story in the Visitor Center had his house and killed his family. I then went to the old prison exhibit and saw the extremely narrow halls and cells and extensive graffiti along the walls, some with dates going back to the early 1800s.
After that I sent to another small museum that quite frankly I don’t even recall the specific nature of but saw old marine equipment like Roman anchors and lots of pottery. The site has a long history with many different empires trying to control the island at various times over hundreds if not thousands of years. It would have made an ideal location for naval and commercial control of the Mediterranean. I left the fortress and headed back to the central bus terminal to make my way to the next destination, another megalithic temple called Ġgantija Temple, or Giant Temple. Because of the large size of the boulders making up the structure of the temple, the locals could not imagine anyone other than giants being capable of constructing such an edifice. I almost missed my bus stop as I was trying to work on getting service on my phone to map out what other things I might be able to see after this stop. But luckily I happened to notice a bunch of other people getting off at the stop, which appeared to be in the middle of nowhere interesting so I figured this must be it. If I was wrong, worst case scenario was that I just had to wait for the next bus, but considering my bus karma, I could be there a while. I followed the other tourists around the corner a bit and saw the visitor center for the site. It again had a nice exhibit explaining what they have found at the site and what they think it was used for. Then I followed a long wooden boardwalk to the actual site. To be honest, the presentation of the site made me think it was going to be more impressive than the other two I visited on Malta but it was not anything more, maybe even less, than what I saw before. The board walk took you around the entire structure as well as into the interior of the temple and gave good explanations of what they thought each area was used for and pointed out interesting details such as decorations and indentations in the rock indicating that perhaps a door or curtains or something were affixed to the doorways.
As I exited through the gift shop (of course) I realized I had Wi-Fi there so I paused a moment to investigate buses and timing and what else I could see in my time. I didn’t think I was going to have enough time to see some of the sites on the other side of the island and to be honest, it wasn’t quite warm enough to think about swimming in the Blue Lagoon so I decided to skip that and the $30 price tag to get to the Blue Lagoon from Gozo and to get my beach fix at the most popular beach on the island, Ramla Bay. I had read that if you were already halfway there, that it sometimes made more sense to get the equivalent of an Uber, a service called Bolt, which I had already downloaded in anticipation, to get to the beach and then take a bus back to the center. So while I had wifi, I summoned a Bolt and waited outside of the visitor center for a few minutes before hopping into a small car to go to the beach. It was about a 15 minute ride and I totally forgot to notice where the bus station was to make my way back to Victoria. There was no way I could summon another Bolt because I had zero service out there so a bus was my only option. I walked out to the sand and walked along the crystal blue water, dipping just my toes in to discover it was pretty frigid as evidenced by not a single person swimming. There were a few other beach walkers and some sitting on the beach in their swimsuits or having a picnic but I imagine it was pretty tame compared to a good beach day.
I didn’t need to linger there long so I walked back off the sand to the road I came in on and figured I would just keep walking until I came across a bus stop. Remember, I had no cell service to help me. I only had to walk about ½ mile before a T in the road and a quick glance up the cross street revealed a bus stop. One on each side of the road. I don’t think this was the way I came in so I really was a bit stumped on what side of the road I should wait at to get the bus back to Victoria. I figured I would do my best to peruse the schedule posted on the bus stop. As I walked up to the stop on the one side of the road, I heard a voice say hello. Sitting behind a fence in a field of some sort of agricultural bushes was an old fat man and a dog sitting on a folding chair just facing the road. There are no houses and not much else around so perhaps just watching the tourists come and go is his entertainment. I crossed the road to greet the man and he asked me in broken English where I was from and if I went swimming. I told him it was a bit too cold for me to swim and he scoffed at me, with the intent being that I was a pussy. But he smiled and I figured I would ask him what side of the road I needed to be to catch the bus to Victoria. He pointed at the one I was just standing at and told me it would arrive at 3:30pm. It was 3:20pm so I didn’t have long to wait. We made some more short pleasantries and I boarded the bus when it arrived. I probably could have managed to get back to Victoria and one more sight seeing spot but I was tired no still a little weak from my earlier illness so I decided to call it a day and just find the bus back to the ferry terminal once I arrived in Victoria. I was still having trouble getting a signal on my phone even when I got back to the bus terminal so I just asked one of the bus drivers parked in the bays which bus I needed to get the ferry. He pointed me to around the corner and told me to look for bus 301. It only took a few minutes for that bus to arrive and I was back to the ferry terminal where I had to buy my return ticket to get back to Malta. Another 15 minutes of waiting before boarding the ferry and disembarking in Cirkewwa on Malta. My phone was getting service by the time I got out of the terminal and found the many bays where each bus left from and I knew I was looking for a particular number bus to take me back to Sliema. But as per usual, the bus that was supposed to arrive at a certain time never came and I waited probably 30 minutes before it finally arrived.
Cirkewwa was the final stop on that route and it was now close to 5pm. At each stop along the way, more and more people got onto the bus and it didn’t take long before it was standing room only and the bus didn’t even stop at the remaining scheduled stops if no one pushed the button to be dropped off because there was no more room on the bus. The looks of disappointment from the many people waiting for this bus and watching it go by without stopping was sorrowful and it made me wonder how many buses on this route would these people have to wait for until one had room. I learned that if taking public transportation, you definitely need to build in a lot of time if you had a specific time you needed to be somewhere. I made it back to my Sliema apartment in time to take a shower and head back to the bar around the corner as I had read that they had $5 burgers. I was early enough this time and there were plenty of places to sit. I got a burger and a beer and then headed back to the apartment to make sure I was all packed up to go early in the morning.
My flight left at 9am and I was about 25 minutes from the airport. My apartment host was nice enough to offer to arrange a ride for me to the airport in exchange for the washer not working. I took him up on it and Mario was my driver again the next morning. He was in his fancy hotel transfer van and I felt like a VIP. I got to the airport in plenty of time and was able to grab a coffee and read for a bit before boarding the plane to Madrid. I knew that as soon as my plane landed I needed to find the train station, which appeared to be right at the airport. I would take the train to Sevilla where I had booked a hostel for two nights while visiting Marta, my old friend from high school. I was not checking in to my apartment in Faro until the 3rd, which left me 1 free night between the hostel and Faro, but I was hesitant to book the hostel for 3 nights in case I was not comfortable there for any reason. I figured I could find a place along the way from Sevilla to Faro or in Faro for one night if needed.
