Museums in Gozo

DAY 3: GOZO

For such a small island, Gozo boasts a great number of museums with intriguing exhibits. The art shown at Gozo's museums and galleries ranges from 5000-year-old statuettes to moon rock, historical graffiti to contemporary works of art. The Citadel is home to the majority of the museums, with the other ones scattered around the villages. They cover a wide range of topics, including archaeology, crafts, theology, science, toys, and jail cells, but all give insight into the heart and spirit of Gozo, both in the past and the present.

Victoria is where you can find the the Old Prison. While a separate block of six individual cells makes up the remainder of the prison, which was in use from the middle of the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century, the entrance hall from today's prison served as a communal cell in the 19th century and is now home to a permanent exhibition on fortifications. The Knights of St. John utilised this jail to house their noisy and disruptive members right away when they arrived in Malta.

One of the few windmills from the Knights' Period still standing in the Maltese Islands is the Ta' Kola Windmill in ix-Xagħra, Gozo. Dating back to 1720, Villagers used to bring their grain to be crushed into flour when the wind conditions were favourable. The top of the mill still has the large millstones attached to the main milling machinery, which is surrounded by the living and working quarters of the miller.

Gozo Nature Museum

Behind the mediaeval Courts of Justice, in one of the twisting corridors of the Citadel, lies the Gozo Nature Museum, another attraction showcases the environmental history of the island, its natural resources, and how the island's inhabitants utilise them.The museum is located in three adjoining homes from the first half of the seventeenth century. The structure was used as an inn in the eighteenth century and as a shelter for families fleeing aerial bombing during World War II. The displays on the lower level center on the island of Gozo in particular, geology, minerals, and the development of humans and other animals. The upper level displays the animals, plants, and ecosystems of the Maltese Islands. A little garden at the Museum's back features a number of native and garigue species, including the Maltese Rock Centaury, which serves as the nation's official plant.

Ta' Kola Windmill

Palazzo Falson

Mdina Dungeons

Bus Routes Valletta to Ta' Qali: 54 or 56 Valletta to Rabat: 50 Valletta to Mdina: 51, 52, 53

DAY 4

Rabat and neighbouring Mdina, the ‘silent city’ are rich in history, packed with museums and enticing attractions that cater for all the family. For instance, the Wignacourt Museum stands out because it caters to tourists of all preferences. The museum presents an exhibition of numerous paintings, relics, and other religious artefacts in what was formerly the baroque home of the Chaplains of the Knights of the Order of St. John. Proceed to St. Paul's Catacombs, a maze of underground tombs, underneath the museum. Interestingly, these catacombs are Malta's earliest archaeological representation of Christianity.

The Mdina Dungeons are located beneath Vilhena Palace, just inside Mdina's main gate. Explore the rooms and underground corridors while screaming your way through an immersive tour into the sinister past of the city. The different forms of torture that took place when Malta was a colony under the reign of the Romans, Arabs, the Knights of Malta, and even the French are recreated here by a variety of wax figures. (p.s this is a tad on the

Malta Aviation Museum St Paul's Catacombs

gruesome side. Thus, this is not recommended for the faint-hearted!)

You cannot truly soak in Mdina’s beauty without visiting the Palazzo Falson. The two-story Palazzo Falson building was initially constructed in the Middle Ages and later enlarged. The museum has a number of displays of antiques and artwork in addition to housing its most recent occupant, who lived there permanently in the early 20th century, and his vast collection of historical artefacts. It belonged to Olof Frederick Gollcher, a descendent of a Swedish-Maltese family who made a fortune in Malta in shipping. Olof was an artist, a philanthropist and art lover who collected objets d’art, mostly from travels throughout his life. Olof’s house in Mdina is filled with antique furniture, silver pieces, oriental carpets, paintings, ship models, armoury, rare books, watches, jewellery and many other valuable artefacts. Gustav Café is also open to guests for refreshments on the rooftop terrace of the museum.

The Domus

Romana museum is situated halfway between Mdina and Rabat. These museums were unintentionally found to contain the ruins of an aristocratic Roman mansion in 1881.

Since then, the exquisite mosaics and the artefacts on show provide an engaging viewing of what is known about Malta during the Roman era.

The Malta Aviation Museum at Ta' Qali, which covers everything about planes and the history of aviation, is just ten minutes away from Mdina. The museum, which is situated in three hangars, details the history of aviation on the island and has artefacts, particularly from the Second World War and the post-war eras. Some of the planes being maintained and restored by the museum are still in working order.