Gozo; Saturday, 17 January, 2015

A quick breakfast and then out of the hotel down to the harbour to pick up the open-top sightseeing tour bus of the island.

The bus took a long route around the island by first heading up into the hills behind the harbour and the islands second city of Nadur before heading down to the North coast at Ramla bay. Backtracking through Nadur it then visited a craft food display in Xewkija before heading up to the temples in Xaghra and the site of Calypso’s Cave where there was a short photo stop.

Back on the bus we headed over to Marsalforn before reaching Rabat and then heading out to the Basilica at Ta’ Pinu and then down to the Azure Window at Dwejra. Skirting round the edge of Rabat the bus then went down to the south harbour town of Xlendi before heading back into Rabat and then back down the main road to Mgarr.

After a quick pause for a bottle of orange juice and a chocholate bar I was back on the bus to take in the stunning views from the other side as I caught it back round to it’s first stop in Rabat.

I was just in time to join a late running land train tour round the edge of the Citadella and then once that was completed I headed up into the Citadella to have a look around.

When I’d visited in 2007 the site was looking a little forlorn and in need of some TLC. We’ll it’s certainly receiving it at the moment as the site was undergoing major renovations that aren’t due to finish until 2017. Unfortunately it did mean that much of the site wasn’t able to be visited.

After looking round what was open of the Citadella I headed back down to the bus station and picked the bus back up to continue the tour on down to Xlendi where I disembarked to have a look round this small harbour town. I had originally intended on just spending around 35 minutes looking round so that I would be able to catch the next (and last) tour bus back to Mgarr, but in the end there was quite a bit to see, with the cliff walk to a cave and the views of the harbour taking quite some time, that I’d long since missed the last tour bus and so I decided that I might as well have dinner in one of the nice looking restaurants near the harbour.

Stuffed to the gills from dinner I eventually staggered back to the bus stop and caught the bus back into Rabat thinking that I wouldn’t have very long to wait for a connection back to Mgarr. Unfortunately I’d managed to time my arrival in Rabat with the point in the timetable where there is a missing bus (to coincide with the ferries becoming less frequent), so instead of there being one there waiting for me I had a 45 minute wait.

Eventually the bus arrived and I headed back to the hotel, a quick drink in the bar and then turned in for the night.