Best Things to Do in Gozo in One Day
The Gozo sights worth a day trip — the Citadel, Ġgantija, Dwejra, Ramla Bay, Tal-Mixta, the salt pans and Ta' Pinu — and which tours actually reach each one.
Gozo has more sights than a day can hold, and a handful that a day should not miss. This is the short list, in the order of how much they repay the time — and, since it is the question that actually decides your booking, which kinds of tour reach each one.
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The Citadel, Victoria
The fortified old town on the hill in the middle of the island, and the one stop nobody regrets. The walls give you the whole of Gozo in a single turn — terraced fields, village domes, the sea on three sides. Inside are the Cathedral of the Assumption, the excavated lanes of the old town, an old prison, and a vaulted stair cut down through the bastion.
Victoria itself, still called Rabat by everyone who lives there, is the island’s capital and its only real town, with about 7,000 people. Republic Street below the Citadel is where you eat.
Reached by: every land tour. The hop-on hop-off bus stops there, and so do all the buses.
The Ġgantija Temples, Xagħra
Two megalithic temples built between roughly 3600 and 3200 BC, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and older than both Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. The name comes from the Maltese word for giant, because the blocks are large enough that the island decided giants must have put them there.
Go with someone who can explain them, or read up first. Entry is included on the guided coach tours and is an optional extra on most jeep and UTV trips.
Reached by: guided coach tours (ticket included), jeep and UTV tours (free time, ticket extra).
Dwejra
The west coast, and the island’s most dramatic stretch of rock. The Inland Sea is a lagoon connected to the open Mediterranean by a tunnel through the cliff, and small boats run through it when the sea allows — about €6, paid on the day, weather permitting.
Be clear about one thing before you go: the Azure Window, the arch that appeared on every Gozo postcard, collapsed into the sea during a storm in March 2017. What remains is still worth the stop. The photograph is not on offer.
Reached by: jeep, UTV, quad and coach tours. Awkward by bus.
Ramla Bay and Tal-Mixta Cave
Ramla is the red-sand beach on the north coast, and the best view of it is not from the sand. Tal-Mixta Cave is a shallow opening in the hillside above the bay, and the framed view out of its mouth — red sand, turquoise water, terraced green fields — is the image most people have in their heads when they picture Gozo.
The cave is reached by a short rough track, which is why the vehicle you arrive in matters.
Reached by: jeep, UTV and quad tours. Not the coach.
The Xwejni salt pans
A chequerboard of shallow pans cut into the flat coastal rock near Marsalforn, worked by the same families for generations and still harvested by hand in summer. It photographs unreasonably well in late light and takes fifteen minutes to see.
Reached by: jeep, UTV and quad tours, and the coastal road generally.
Ta’ Pinu Basilica
The national shrine, standing alone in the fields near Għarb, with the votive offerings inside that make it worth going in rather than photographing from the road. Arms should be covered and shorts or short skirts avoided — some tours state this explicitly.
Reached by: most land tours.
Xlendi and Marsalforn
Two seaside villages on opposite coasts, both good for lunch, both with swimming off the rocks. Xlendi sits at the end of a narrow inlet in the south; Marsalforn is the bigger resort on the north coast, near the salt pans. Most itineraries include one or the other.
Reached by: most land tours, and the buses.
What this means for your booking
The split is clean. A coach reaches the monuments; an open 4x4, UTV or quad reaches the coast and the viewpoints as well. If Ġgantija and the Citadel are what you came for, take the guided coach and get the tickets thrown in. If Tal-Mixta, the salt pans and Dwejra are what you have been looking at online, take something that can use the tracks.
For most people the answer is the full-day jeep tour, which covers both sides of that split. The one-day itinerary puts the stops in a working order, and the homepage compares every format.
See Gozo in One Day, Without the Bus Timetable
The full-day jeep tour picks you up in Malta, handles both crossings, feeds you lunch and covers the island's main sights in a day. Rated 4.6/5 by 1,215 guests, with free cancellation.
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