Qala, Gozo's balcony over Comino

Qala is the first place on Gozo to see the sun rise, which tells you a fair bit about the visit. It’s a small village at the island’s eastern tip, perched above the channel that separates it from Comino and Malta. There are no grand monuments, but there is one of the most complete views in the archipelago and a cove that, according to the Ministry for Gozo, is a summer favourite with families.

Gozo’s easternmost village

With 2,388 residents in the NSO’s latest count, Qala borders Mġarr harbour and the neighbouring villages of Għajnsielem and Nadur. The Ministry for Gozo says the area has been settled since the earliest times, although today’s village dates from the second half of the 17th century. The name means port, probably after the bay and landing place at Ħondoq ir-Rummien, now its beach.

The centre is the square in front of St Joseph’s Church, baroque in style, built between 1882 and 1889 by Dun Ġużepp Diacono, the priest-architect who also designed the church in Għasri. Qala became a parish on 3 February 1872, the first created after Gozo got its own diocese. The St Joseph feast is held on the first Sunday in August; in 2026 it fell on the 2nd.

The belvedere and the chapel facing Comino

The first thing I’d look for in Qala is the belvedere. The Ministry for Gozo reckons you can fit three islands into one photo from here, Gozo, Comino and Malta, and it’s the spot I’d pick to take in the whole channel at a glance. It’s one of the best viewpoints in Malta I wouldn’t skip.

Nearby is the little chapel of the Madonna tal-Blat, Our Lady of the Rocks, with a courtyard in front that makes another fine lookout. It faces Comino, and legend says it was built so the islanders over there could follow Mass from across the water when the sea was too rough for the priest to make the crossing. I think it’s a lovely story to hear while looking at that very stretch of sea.

The legend of St Corrado

Qala has a saint of legend too. The Ministry for Gozo says the Immaculate Conception chapel is linked to St Corrado, a hermit and healer who, tradition holds, sailed to Gozo using his cloak as a float and is buried in the crypt. Its outer walls still carry graffiti of galleons and ships, thanks for safe voyages from grateful sailors. To reach the belvedere, the ministry suggests driving up the steep road from Mġarr harbour.

The battery, the windmills and the ancient bits

At Gozo’s easternmost point stands St Anthony’s Battery, built by the Knights in 1731 to watch the channel between Gozo and Comino. It’s a half-hexagon over the sea, with a ditch around it and a gun platform that held cannon in the 18th century. It’s a place to walk out to and sit for a while.

Around the village you’ll spot two windmills, one on the outskirts and another on the road to Nadur, which aren’t open but are very much part of the landscape. Stranger still are the traces of a much earlier age, prehistoric cart ruts at Ras il-Qala that you can follow for some distance, and a large menhir near the village school that hints at another temple somewhere nearby.

The Immaculate Conception chapel and the road to the sea

Between Qala and the coast, on the way to Ħondoq, is the Immaculate Conception chapel, which the Ministry for Gozo dates to 1575 and counts among the oldest Marian shrines on the island. It served as parish church for the whole east of Gozo in 1688 and again for Qala from 1872 to 1889. It holds an altarpiece attributed to Federico Barocci and celebrates its feast on 8 December.

Carry on down the road and you reach Ħondoq ir-Rummien, the only easy swimming spot on a coastline the ministry describes as mostly rock. There are several caves along the shore too, and the prettiest, Għar Minka, can only be reached by boat.

Under the water and on foot

Off Qala lies one of the Malta shipwrecks opened up by Heritage Malta, a Second World War Spitfire Mark Vc resting on sand at 72 metres, found in April 2021. It’s technical diving, only with approved centres.

If you’d rather stay on dry land, the Ministry for Gozo’s Ħondoq ir-Rummien Walk leaves Mġarr harbour, climbs through Qala and Nadur and returns via Għajnsielem, with Comino and the channel in view the whole way. I’d do it early, before the heat, and finish with a swim at Ħondoq.