Comino & Gozo, Malta

By far the smallest of Malta's 3 islands, Comino is just 3.5 square kilometers. What it lacks in permanent residents (the number varies between 1 and 3 depending on your source), it more than makes up for with hotel guests and day trippers when the sun is shining. The island is reachable with a quick ferry ride from both Malta and Gozo.

Comino's Blue Lagoon has that turquoise colored water that instantly comes to mind when you think of an exotic beach.

The island, formerly busy during the World Wars, has only a few buildings including a police station that overlooks the beach's camp ground, a church that opens only on the weekends when a priest is brought in from one of the other two islands, and a defunct bakery.

As far as I could tell, there didn't seem to be a paved road on the island, not that one would be needed.

When you catch the ferry leaving Comino, the route will often take a short detour to give passengers a close up peek at the cliffs and caves of Comino.

Also worth a day trip is Gozo, Malta's northern most island. Since I'm not a driver, my only convenient option for getting around was to take one of those hop on-hop off buses I usually try to avoid!

With just 30,000 people in all of Gozo, its main city is Rabat but it also goes by the name Victoria since it was renamed for Queen Victoria when Malta was still a British colony. The centerpiece of the city is the Citadel. With Victoria plunk in the center of Gozo, the outer walls offer a 360 degree view of the island.

Inside the bastions is the cathedral with its floor completely covered in beautifully decorated tombs.

At the western end of Gozo is Dwejra. Here is the famous Azure Window, a massive and natural arch.

For a small fee, local fisherman will shuttle visitors to and from the Azure Window for a better view.

Just around the corner is the inaccurately and sadly named Fungus Rock. The brown flowering plant, which is actually not fungus, growing on this isolated rock was incorrectly thought to have special medicinal powers hundreds of years ago. Any unauthorized person caught on or near the rock was sentenced to demanding physical labor for several years!

To give you a sense of scale of the looming cliffs, note the tiny red kayak in the bottom left corner.

Overlooking Fungus Rock and the dramatic cliffs is the Dwejra Tower, built in the mid 17th century to protect the coastline and monitor Fungus Rock.

I stopped off in Xlendi (pronounced Shlendi) for lunch. With nearly 100% of its population Catholic, Malta is a very devout country. And since nuns have to eat lunch, too, I had a great time nun-spotting in Xlendi.

Xlendi also has some great scenery, in addition to a plethora of nuns.

Between 3600 and 3000 BC, the two temples at Ggantija were constructed. They are virtually identical in layout, though one is larger than the other. The temples were likely used for life and fertility ceremonies for about 1,000 years when they suddenly and mysteriously fell into disuse.

Hopping back on the bus to Mgarr Harbour to catch the ferry to Malta, the largest of the country's 3 islands, completed my tour of Gozo.