Five hundred years ago, some time in the beginning of the 16th century, no one thought much of Gozo, unless you were a furban, that is, and used it as a pirate playground.
It was then truly the island where time stood still, because, well, everything was very very still, apart from two creaking limestone sea caves in the remote west coast of the island. One day in a loud noise – a whoomph – broke the lull. The two groaning caves had collapsed.
No one noticed, no one ran back home and etched a tattoo of vanished sea caves, no one blamed Monroy or King Alfonso for the demise of the caves, no one appealed for an international initiative. However, somewhere in the remains of the caves, a chink of a window was born; unnoticed, except by the sea and the rain and the wind, which immediately fell in love with its cliff face.
And years passed. The Knights of St John came and went, Napoleon came and went, the British came and went, and no one really paid much notice to the ever-growing gap in the jutting promontory on Gozo’s west coast.
A traveller, in the early 19th century took a photo of it – and it was rather wide by now, but chunky, solid, not unlike a doorway of a prehistoric temple. Gozitans, who by now were rid of the furbani, gave it a name – ‘Tieqa’ – because they needed some sort of reference point, “Mort nistad ħdejn it-tieqa”.
Then came the war and after everyone needed a break. So the Maltese decided that it would be a good idea to think of Gozo as ‘charming’ and ‘remote’ and ‘quaint’ and it became the perfect excuse to start going on holiday there. The Maltese donned their tourist hats and posed for Polaroid pictures next to the Tieqa. At one point someone gave it a fancier name – ‘Azure’. I am not sure who came up with this, because let’s face it, who on earth says ‘azure’ instead of ‘blue’?
In any case, with the advent of PR and the Malta Tourism Authority, Azure became a famous landmark. But then the pressure starting taking its toll: in the 1980s and the 2000s, parts of the top slab of the arch kept breaking off, and the arch became wider and wider.
Launch an international initiative about Żonqor, and we go on Sky News to ask for help so the man-made destruction of the pristine land there is halted once and for all
Spring, in particular, was never a good time: large rocks fell off it almost every year, in March or April. In 2013, the weeping rocks were so huge that a geological report was commissioned. Azure was pricked and prodded and declared unwell, but we were reassured that it still had ‘decades’ to live.
Then came last Wednesday. The arch and free-standing pillar collapsed in a bout of violent gale-force winds. It left us just as it came: to the loud sound of whoomph, perfectly timed so that there were witnesses clocking its 9.40am death.
It was a bit of a surreal day. As we all went about our day, there was a certain wistfulness, the air was downcast. Something that we’ve known all our lives, that we thought would always be there, despite the warnings, was now gone. Even worse, it left no trace behind it: even the stacks are gone.
In the end it was Wikipedia that got to me. When on Wednesday evening I googled it, my heart sank as I clocked in the tenses: “The Azure Window also known as the Dwejra Window was a 28-metre-tall limestone natural arch on the island of Gozo in Malta. It was located in Dwejra Bay. It was one of Malta’s major tourist attractions.”
By way of comfort I searched for photos of Azure. Last summer we’d been there, we swam in the black sinkhole beneath it. I found pictures of my daughter and her friends, posing against the backdrop of the window. “There, there,” I muttered to myself “at least she can show Azure to her grandchildren”.
■ There’s a few things that we can do to get over the window grieving. These are my ideas for the international initiatives:
We all go on a tour of the natural coastal arches in Malta – believe it or not, there’s nine others: Wied il-Mielaħ Window, limits of Għarb; Two-arched window in Cominotto; St Mary’s Battery arch in Comino; the arch just under the Pig Farm in Comino; the Blue Lagoon window in Comino; Elephant head rock in Comino; the Qrendi window off the Ħagar Qim archaeological park; the Valletta window off Triq il-Lancia; and Ras il-Fenek in Delimara.
Watch on a loop, the movies where the Azure Window was immortalised – Clash of the Titans (1981); The Count of Monte Cristo (2002); the TV series The Odyssey; and Game of Thrones.
Place a bid for a piece of the original stone from the collapsed Azure Window (!) described as “a little piece of legend”, on sale on eBay (€45 at time of writing).
Leave the site as is: No artificial reconstruction, no augmented reality, no interpretation centre. Nothing.
Launch an international initiative about Żonqor, and we go on Sky News to ask for help so the man-made destruction of the pristine land there is halted once and for all.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti