Shaw & Tash's Travel Blog

So last night’s festival was interesting- it was in a tiny neighbouring village called San Lawrenz. We weren’t really sure what was going on to be honest but what seemed to be the entire village had turned up, all donning their swankiest apparel.

San Lawrenz Festival

The village itself was spruced up with lights and decorations, and their was one of the loudest, and perhaps longest fire works displays i’ve ever experienced. The only thing i can liken it to is an hour and a half anti air flak barrage- it display consisted of these small blobs which were tossed into the air which went off like submarine depth charges- the explosions boomed around the town square with enough force for you to be able to feel the shock wave through your chest. And these went on at a regular interval for a good two to three hours. Towards the end they had actual fireworks. During all of this an effigy of one of their saints was paraded through the streets while a big band played. It was quite something.

Having recovered our hearing this morning we set off for a “Jeep Tour” of Gozo- this was an all day jobby which took us around, pretty much all the recommended tourist spots of the island. If you do ever come here, i would recommend the tour, though i was a little uncomfortable in the back of the jeep owing to my freakishly long legs, and general fidgety demeanour. This is where the Jeep took us;
View Gozo Jeep Tour in a larger map

We went through a few of the islands beaches which i won’t bore yo with a blow by blow account of! Gozo is quite strange in that there doesn’t seem to be any single large stretches of beach- 100’s of tiny little stretches dotted around all over the place (like Ramla which i wrote about the other day). Some of the villages which house these bays are tiny, and its quite something to see people living in such remote locations- i thought it was quite cool how many of them build into the surrounding cliffs;

Garage cut into the cliffs

They also took us past the Salt Fields- these shallow pools which they pump water into then allow to evaporate for 3 days, then harvest and store the salt!

Salt Fields

We dropped in on a famous church in Gozo – In Malta in general they are all really heavily Roman Catholic and ladies arent allowed in the churches with their shoulders or knees exposed- they have “loaner” clothes for anyone who is over exposed- I only mention this because Tash had to cover up to enter and i thought the photo was funny!

Tash ready for church!

After that the Calypso Caves which are quite famous- they weren’t all that impressive to see, and are quite small worth a look as they have a lot of history having been referenced in Greek mythology.

Tash in the Calypso Caves

The Azure window was quite something– this is a huge rock formation on the coast- we got a boat ride while there to drive around it and get a better look- the caves in general all around this stretch of coast are quite epic.

The Azure Window

We did a few more bays, then stopped in at one of the quarries which they get all the lime stone from to build everything on the island- the scale of these was quite impressive.

BIg Ol Lime Stone Quarry