Ġgantija Temple & Ta' Kola Windmill

Before catching the ferry to Sicily this evening, I decided to head to Malta's sister island, Gozo, to see some of the sights there. After taking the 45 minute ferry from Valletta to Gozo's port of M'garr, I travelled up to a village called Xagħra to see the oldest structure in Europe - the Ġgantija Temple.

This temple is over 5,500 years old - older than the Pyramids - and was made by Neolithic (i.e. Stone Age) people who later disappeared entirely from the island. When the islands became reinhabited during the Bronze Age, this temple and others like it were already standing.

Much like Stonehenge, it's a megalithic structure - a building made of massive stones - and another similarity, no-one can really explain how these early peoples transported these stones into place. Furthermore, no-one really has any idea what it was built for or anything about the beliefs of the people who made it. It's a Maltese Mystery.

Also included in the entry ticket was the nearby Ta' Kola Windmill. This mill was built by the Knights of Malta and used for grinding grain into flour. While the invention of steam-powered mills during the Industrial Revolution rendered most windmills redundant, this mill was temporarily brought back into operation to address food shortages in the aftermath of the Second World War.Read more