Malta/Sicily Day 10: Gozo, Malta

Tuesday, June 23, 2026

After an overnight cruise from Sicily, we arrived at the second-largest island of Malta, Gozo. Unlike most of our earlier port calls, we anchored offshore and used tenders (lifeboats) to reach Mgarr, the primary port city. After arriving at the port, we boarded buses to travel to the Gjantija Temples, which date to about 3600 BC, and a small museum near the town of Xaghra in the center of the island.

We then continued to the north end of the island where there were many salt pans for evaporating sea water. While we have seen the salt evaporators along the shore of San Francisco Bay, these were much smaller evaporators operated by families in the region. We listened to a short talk on the salt harvesting process, and were given burlap sample bags of Gozo salt.

For lunch, we had another tradition, a Pasta Wheel lunch. Cooked pasta was swirled in the center of a large wheel of parmesan cheese, resulting in a very creamy and rich taste. In the afternoon, Sea Cloud II again set its sails for our final voyage back to Valletta.

Our farewell cocktails and dinner were served this evening in case some passengers want to spend more time off-ship on our final evening in Valletta. Kenna and Dave received certificates attesting to their climbing one of the ship’s riggings.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Malta and Sicily. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.