On the island of Gozo, the smaller sister of Malta, there stands a pair of temples that are older than the pyramids of Egypt and older than Stonehenge. The Ġgantija temples were built between about 3600 and 3200 BC, and the name comes from the Maltese word for giant, since islanders long believed that only a race of giants could have lifted such enormous stones. Local legend adds a giantess who carried the blocks on her head while nursing a baby, and who lived on a diet of broad beans. Some of the standing stones are over five metres tall, and the outer walls are made of massive pieces of coralline limestone, while the inner walls are finer-grained globigerina stone.
Inside the walls are a series of curved apses leading off a central passage, with altars, libations holes and carvings of spirals. It is one of the best preserved prehistoric monuments in the world, and the site is part of the UNESCO listing of the Megalithic Temples of Malta. Next to the temples a small visitor centre displays finds and models and explains what people think the buildings were used for, though the honest answer is that nobody knows for sure.
Gozo is a place for slow riding. The island is only about fourteen kilometres long, with green fields, terraced hills, small villages and stone farmhouses, and the roads are narrow, quiet and well surfaced, though busy near the ferry in summer. Reaching it requires the short car ferry from Ċirkewwa on Malta to Mġarr, which takes around twenty-five minutes and carries motorbikes. Xagħra, the nearest village, has fewer than four thousand people but supplies a shop, cafés and a petrol station nearby, and Victoria, the island's capital, has the supermarkets and the bigger garages. The huge dome of the church at Xewkija, visible for kilometres, is worth a short detour.
Food on Gozo is simple and local: gbejniet, small round cheeses made from sheep or goat milk, ftira, a flatbread pizza topped with potatoes and cheese, and sweet figs and honey. The nearby Ramla Bay has red sand and a hillside cave said by legend to be the home of Calypso, who held Odysseus captive for seven years.
Go outside high summer if possible, as the heat is intense and the island is crowded, and enjoy the quiet fields in spring, when the hillsides turn green and the wildflowers bloom.