Some years ago it was planned to connect the islands of Malta and Gozo by a bridge and Japanese engineers were called in to carry out a feasibility study. The project was considered technically possible but as the expense involved would have been considerable the plan was shelved. Any many people in Malta, and many more in Gozo breathed a sigh of relief.

Should the Island of Gozo become too accessible there is a real danger of the island losing the old-word charm which Gozo has so far retained, and which Malta possessed and, unfortunately, lost some half century ago. The sister island of Malta is different from the larger island in that it is more fertile, more picturesque, and far more unspoilt; but what makes Gozo so markedly different from Malta are the Gozitans.

Rustic, and living in the past, Gozo may be, but that does not make Gozitans in any way backward: opera stars of international repute are invited to sing in the two theatres in Gozo’s capital, Victoria (renamed from “Rabat” in honour of Queen Victoria). For the younger generation, pop singers and music festivals provide the more modern equivalent. Moreover, some of the best brains in Malta have come out of Gozo. Like rustic communities elsewhere, but especially where economic conditions are hard, Gozitans are thrifty, but their husbandry never encroaches on avarice, and their generosity towards worthy causes is always unstinted.

The citadel in Victoria is a museum in itself; it is here that the rich Medieval families of Gozo had their own quarters in which to spend the night. In the esplanade below, in the square known as It-Tokk, one can see the more colourful side of Gozo. In the open market and in the souvenir shops around it are exposed for sale such local handicrafts as crocheted woollen dresses, the wool spun from the local sheep and the dresses worked but the island’s women as is also the famous Gozo Lace, a traditional, but still a very much flourishing, art. Even if the Malta-Gozo bridge has not been built, communication between the islands is easy and frequent as car-ferries, hovercraft and yachts crisscross the six kilometer wide Gozo Channel.