Malta's quieter sister — Ggantija temples older than Stonehenge, salt pans at Xwejni, and Gozitan ftira bread
Gozo (Għawdex) is the second-largest Maltese island — 67 km², population 37,000, reached by a 25-minute ferry from Ċirkewwa. The Ggantija temples (3600–3200 BCE) are among the oldest freestanding structures on earth, predating both Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids; the twin temples dedicated to the Earth Mother goddess sit above the village of Xagħra in a state of extraordinary preservation. The Azure Window (a natural limestone arch that collapsed in 2017) made the island famous for divers, who now find the collapsed arch itself an extraordinary underwater site — the Blue Hole dive site…
Gozo has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,500 years — the Ggantija temples (3600–3200 BCE) make it one of the oldest continuously settled places in Europe. The island passed through Phoenician, Roman, Arab, Norman, and Aragonese control before becoming part of the Order of St John's Maltese dominion in 1530; the Arab period (870–1090 CE) gave Gozo its name from the Arabic Ghawdex. Homer's Odyssey names Gozo as the island of the nymph Calypso, who kept Odysseus captive for seven years — a tradition local guides maintain with cheerful conviction, pointing to the Calypso Cave above Ram…