Victoria Citadel, Gozo, Malta

We visited the town of Victoria on Gozo briefly, restricting ourselves to the citadel that sits on top of the hill. The fortress was built in the early 1600s, a project inspired by the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. We parked just outside the tall walls and walked up and into the citadel.

View from our parking spot

A tough wall to climb

As we walked up, we saw a World War II shelter. The sign says it now houses modern art but, luckily or unluckily, it was locked and we could not go in.

War Time Shelters

We walked straight into the Cathedral Square, which includes the cathedral and the Old Prison, among other attractions.

Cathedral Square

The Old Prison

A fountain

Staircases all over the place lead up to the ramparts where soldiers would fight invaders.

Wall climbers

Ready to defend against invaders!

Victoria looks quite impressive from above, as do some of the other island towns.

Bastion and Victoria

More of Victoria

Kercem and St. Lucia in the distance

More of the island

While we were walking on the walls, L and J discovered a small lizard running along the warm stones.

Can you spot the lizard?

Easier to find in this picture

Some of the view include a good bit of the citadel itself.

Cathedral's bell tower

More of the walls

J and L loved to run ahead of us or sneak around behind us. With the openness of the ramparts, the game was very tough to play.

J way ahead of us

The citadel has a variety of museums, like the Folklore Museum or the Archeology Museum, but we wanted to enjoy the sunshine and clear skies as much as possible, so we stuck to wall walking. L asked for ice cream from one of the stands in Cathedral Square, so we bought her a snack on our way out of the citadel. It was fun to visit.

One last small memorial