Day 2 - Gozo

We had a quick breakfast and then headed to the bus stop, which was only a short walk from the hotel, and were soon on the bus to the ferry terminal.  Maltese buses are legendary, being driven by insane, angry drivers who want to complete their trip as quickly as possible.  Let's just say that the downhill rides are better than most funfair rides.

By the way, the bus has a hinge in the middle, so that it can bend like a small train.  It is the hinge that is making the screeching sounds (hopefully!)

So, down to the ferry, a quick trip across and we were in Gozo.

The tour rep had told us that the buses on Gozo were not reliable, pushing us to take the guided tours.  As we left the ferry terminal a bus was waiting for us.

We had bought "ride all day" bus tickets in Malta, expecting them to work on Gozo too.  Wrong.  As we boarded the bus on Gozo, the woman there glanced at our ticket with utter contempt.

"Ve don't take your steeen-king MALTESE tickets!"

OK, maybe she did not use those exact words, but close enough.  We bought some more (they were dirt cheap anyway) and settled in for the ride.

Once in Victoria (the main town on Gozo) we set about wandering the streets with the vague aim of finding the Citadel which would give us great views of the island.

Being a staunchly Catholic country, the church gets a lot of respect.  People rush to give their seats to Nuns on the buses....

There are some great vehicles scattered around the islands - this one made me think of wReggie for some reason...

We finally found the Citadel, and staggered to the top in the intense heat.  Mrs RC even managed to perspire a little, something that never happened back in England!

As expected, the views were amazing.

Then it was back on the bus for Xlendi, a lovely little bay that you might remember from previous posts.  Oh, the bus we needed was sitting there waiting for us, too!

We had dinner here, which was great.  

One thing we had was deep fried goats cheese.  

Sounds so wrong.

Tastes so right.

One of my pieces of bread also tried to look like a local attraction:

As it turned out, the bread was as close as we were to get to the Azure Window, but more on that in another post.

We also discovered a new drink here - Watermelon Lemonade.

Without a doubt, this is the most refreshing drink in the entire universe, and as soon as we got home Mrs RC went to work trying to recreate it with great success - watermelon, lemonade and ice smashed together in a smoothie maker.  Fantastic.

After this we headed back to the ferry and the hotel (the bus had been waiting for us - so much for the rep's advice!), were we decided that we needed a bit of a swim.  From a visit about 20 years ago, I remembered a small beach that was not too far from where we were that might not be as busy as the main beach, so we set of to find it.  To cut a long story short, the town seems to have expanded to absorb the beach, and all we managed was to spend a couple of hours meandering through an estate that consisted of a series of loops with no quick way out - they were basically gated communities with no gates, just one way in and out.  So we retreated to the hotel in defeat, for a drink on the balcony.