Gozo through other eyes

Sometimes I find it difficult to be objective about Gozo, so it is interesting to look at it from the view point of first-time visitors to the island.

What did they like? What did they dislike? Was it as they had expected it to be? How did they spend their time?

Friends from north London spent a week in Gozo recently and it was interesting to reflect on their experience as first-time visitors to Malta.

With a home in Italy, and as frequent visitors to the Greek islands, our friends, David and Alan, love the Mediterranean way of life and felt that Gozo was a place to enjoy a holiday, while also recognising that the island is a place where people live and work, in banks, law courts, post offices and shops, and on farms and fishing boats.

There are two parallel universes, which fortunately exist comfortably side by side, although they noted the incongruity of groups of pink-faced, minimally-clad tourists walking in the Citadel past be-suited lawyers and court officials.

I was interested to learn which bars and restaurants appealed to these inveterate diners-out and considerable gourmets.

Tom and I love to go to Mġarr, and walk round to Porto Vecchio, where Chris Cassar and his team serve excellent food in an idyllic setting, winter and summer alike.

Or we stop at It-Tmun for some exquisite seafood. Our friends ate there and enjoyed it very much, having also appreciated the unique national treasure that is the Gleneagles Bar.

Naturally they went to Ta’ Frenċ, where Ino greeted them with Kir royale, Mario cooked delicious food for them, and Frederick flambéed a nifty crêpe or two for their pleasure. They were surprised and impressed to find a world class restaurant on a small island and hoped that it was fully appreciated by ‘the locals’.

Closer to ‘home’, Stephen’s pies and pastries in Xagħra went down a treat. It is almost impossible not to call in there after shopping for fish and vegetables and buy some warm pastizzi for lunch, as well as the carrot cake for after dinner.

David and Alan loved the square; enjoyed sitting, watching the world go by and dined more than once at Oleander.

Evenings would begin, as ours usually do, with a cocktail by the swimming pool. In late spring, our cocktail of choice was a Campari and soda with a nasturtium flower for decoration; extra flowers gathered on country walks went into the tomato and cucumber salad.

They did debate whether ‘farmhouse’ was the right description for their rented property. Minimalist and rustic, perhaps, but more a terrace house than a farmhouse. And, as we often do, our friends noted the lack of wine glasses and the few bits and pieces that make a place feel easy to live in; in a wine-making culture, one would expect wine glasses, not just tumblers.

“We drank only local wine, and thoroughly enjoyed it,” they told us. As we do.

Now we rarely look beyond the Marsovins and Meridianas. But it was many years and countless visits before we reached the stage of being able to say that.

The spectacular scenery, the cultivated terraced hillsides, the lush valleys with their fruit trees, the homogeneous architecture, the Baroque churches, the powerful Citadel all made a deep impression on our friends, as they have on countless visitors over the centuries and contribute to their inclination to return.

Was there nothing they did not like? How about the traffic? Even that did not bother them, because they did not know Gozo when the bumpy roads were shared by donkey carts and few cars. A well-metalled road leading from Mġarr was not a novelty to them.

There was one thing that bothered them; the wind. But it was, of course, May.

For more about earlier visitors to Gozo, I highly recommend Gozo – The Island of Joy by Thomas Freller, published by Colour Image Malta (1997).