The HOHO Bus in Gozo

We were sitting in our favourite little cafe across the street from the bus station in Victoria, when Steve decided to go check out the price of the HOHO Bus at the agency just down the road. The guy offered him the tickets for 12 Euros each if we went tomorrow. That is 6 Euros less than the regular price! I have no idea how they decide how much to discount... maybe just a whim... but the lady in Malta gave us a discount of 4 Euros per person as well.

Anyway, I have no idea how much you might be charged if you decide to do the HOHO tour, but the maximum is 18 Euros on Gozo... and I don't think that's too bad 😀

We walked into Victoria to pick up our bus in the morning. It was already super hot at 9:00 AM. Our first stop was Dwerja. This is the one we were most looking forward to because this is where you see the Azure Window, which is not only beautiful, but the filming site of Khal Drogo and Khaleesi's wedding on GoT.

Unfortunately, it was foggy down by the water this morning, but you still get the gist of it.

The Azure Window is a huge limestone natural arch. They are predicting that it will erode away and disintegrate completely in a few years. 🙁 Apparently, it is good for swimming in the area around the arch, but I don't think it is warm enough yet to be swimming in the ocean!

There is a spot where you could take a small boat through a cave and over to the Azure Window, but the water was too rough for me to even consider it!

Steve did find this guy letting people hold his owl, while we were waiting for the bus 😀

We hopped back on our bus and headed for Marsalforn. I had heard that this was one of the main places that people choose to stay on Gozo because of the tourist amenities. As you approach the town you see this in the distance...

I think they were going for the same look as Rio de Janeiro! Just a reminder that this is a deeply religious country!

When we arrived in Marsalforn it turned a bit cold and windy. The weather is all over the place today! I thought that because this was the most popular tourist area that it would have a beach. Well it sort of did. It was small and rocky, and not in use at this point of the year. We have noticed that instead of beaches there are often ladders and entry spots into the water along the bays for swimming. The weather was not fit for swimming today, so we just walked and had a look around the small town.

The bay is quite beautiful and it is an easy walk all the way around.

Next we headed to the Unesco World Heritage site of Ggantija (I have no idea how to say that! Lucky for us, every Maltese person we've run into speaks English, because Maltese is a tricky language!)

Ggantija are the ruins of two temples which are more than 5500 years old. This makes them older than the pyramids of Egypt! I found it mind-boggling to be looking at something that had been used by people over 5000 years ago. Apparently, these are the second oldest structures in the whole entire world!

It looks like a large pile of rocks when you first approach (hey, what would you look like after 5500 years?!), but this is the outer wall. When you walk around you can go in and see the outline of where rooms used to be. They have built walkways so you can actually go inside the temples, but also have barriers so people don't destroy what still remains.

Next we caught the bus to our last stop, which was Ramla Bay. I had no idea what to expect, but had read that this was a beach... we are always in search of a beach! We thought we might eat lunch here, but when we arrived discovered that unless you wanted gelato for lunch (well I kind of did) there weren't many options 😀

We did however discover the beach!

At last a big sandy beach! The water looked a bit rough for swimming, but I think it was because of the weather today. At the top of the hill you can see Calypso's Cave. This is apparently the place where Calypso kept Odysseus a "prisoner of love" for seven years. At least that is what he purportedly told his wife on his return  home 😀

We made note of how to get to the beach on the public bus so we could come back another day. We also need to figure out how to get up to that cave!

Finally, we hopped on our bus to head back to Victoria. It makes a "break" stop at the ferry terminal for 30 minutes because pretty much everyone but us got off the bus here and headed back to the main island of Malta. Here is Steve on our own private bus!

I would recommend you do the HOHO tour when you first get to Gozo, to get a look at how the island is laid out, and you can get to at least a few of the main sites for a pretty reasonable price!