Before there were pyramids in Egypt, or Stonehenge on its plain, people on a small Mediterranean island were building enormous stone temples, and some of them are still standing. The group at Ġgantija, on the island of Gozo, goes back to roughly 3600 BC, which makes it among the oldest free-standing monuments in the world. The walls are made of huge limestone blocks, some weighing several tonnes, and they curve into rounded chambers like the lobes of a clover leaf. Local legend said they were built by a giantess, and the name comes from the word for giant.
The temples are part of the larger group of Maltese megalithic sites that UNESCO listed in 1980. Little is known about the people who built them, but they left behind carved spirals, altars, and the famous broad-hipped figurines, and they evidently had a sophisticated society on an island with little more than farming and fishing to support it. Today the site sits on a ridge above the village of Xagħra, with views over the fields of Gozo toward the sea.
Getting here with a motorcycle means the ferry from Ċirkewwa on Malta's north coast to Mġarr on Gozo, a short crossing that is part of the fun. Traffic drives on the left, as in Britain, and the roads are narrow, patched and busy with minibuses and tourist cars, with potholes in places and lots of tight village squares. Gozo is much quieter than Malta, and the small hill roads around Victoria, the citadel town, and out to the coast at Dwejra and Ramla Bay are a pleasure at an easy pace. Summer is hot and crowded, so spring and autumn are better, with clear light and fewer queues at the ferry.
Fuel is easy enough in Victoria, only a few kilometres away, and Xagħra and Xewkija have small shops and cafes. Try the local bread with olive oil and tomato, or the sheep's cheese called gbejniet, in a village bar, and ask about the rock salt pans along the northern coast. The famous Azure Window at Dwejra collapsed in a storm in 2017, but the coast there is still dramatic.