Malta & Sicily Travels of Tom & Brian: Victoria, Gozo, Malta

Victoria, or as it was known in ancient times as Rabat, was then and is still the capital city of Gozo, the second largest island of the Maltese archipelago. It’s history is ancient and the buildings that exist in the city are very old. The apartment that we rented for two nights was in a 400-year-old building and it was really interesting and charming. The streets are narrow but they accommodate traffic traveling in one direction and the pedestrians simply step to the side allowing the vehicles to pass.

One of the interesting features of Gozo is the fact that people like bright colors and often paint their doorway and sometimes the window frames as such colors. The streets are basically cobblestone or brick with a narrow sidewalk on either side. Ornate door knockers are on many of the doors. It’s as if each person was vying with their neighbor to have the best entrance way.

Doorways and entranceways are often decorated with potted plants or some other type of shrubbery. Nowhere in Gozo did we see grass or trees within the city. Shown below is our 400 year old apartments that we enjoyed for two nights. It was constructed about the year 1600.

View of St. George’s Cathedral from the Cittadella. (Citadel or Duomo) We stayed right next to it.

The Knights of St. John, also known as the Knights of Malta, used the citadel shown below as their lodging and defense against attacking forces. The citadel dates prior to 1530 but was fortified to its current structure in response to repeated attacks that exposed inadequate defenses. Today it is open to tour and to enjoy several museums within the citadel. The Cathedral of the Assumption is located within the citadel as well, it was constructed in the late 1700s. This part of the world is strongly Catholic and there are many ornate and majestic churches everywhere. They continue to be in use today everywhere just as they have for centuries.

The Knights of Saint John were finally utterly defeated by an attack from Napoleon Bonaparte‘s forces on the island of Malta. Napoleon sent 30,000 soldiers and 10,000 sailors to eliminate the order of the knights. They never recovered and have faded into history.