San Lawrenz, the quiet village with Dwejra on its doorstep

Nearly everyone heading for Dwejra drives through San Lawrenz, and hardly anyone stops. I would, because it has the calm of a village of 800 people, the highest hill on Gozo and one of the island’s most dramatic stretches of coast a short walk away.

A village among hills, inland from Dwejra

San Lawrenz lies in western Gozo on a plain enclosed by the hills of Ta’ Għammar, Ta’ Gelmus and Ta’ Dbieġi. The 2025 NSO figures give it 808 residents. The Ministry for Gozo places it inland from the geological wonders of Dwejra Bay, which it calls the village’s main attraction. Dwejra has its own page, so here I’ll stick to the village.

Ta’ Dbieġi deserves a word. At 195 metres above sea level it’s the highest point on Gozo. Don’t picture a summit, because 195 metres makes a modest hill at most, but from the top the west of the island falls into place, with Dwejra one way and the Wied il-Għasri valley starting out the other.

From Ta’ Ċangura to a parish of its own

Before it took its patron’s name, the area was called Ta’ Ċangura, and it can be traced back to before the Ottoman raid of 1551. Until the late 19th century it belonged to the neighbourhood of Għarb, but the villagers wanted their own community and their own church. The foundation stone went down on 21 September 1886 with a relic of St Lawrence beneath it, and the church was finished and consecrated on 28 April 1889. The whole village pitched in.

The parish followed. A pastoral letter from Pope Leo XIII dated 15 March 1893 created it, with effect from 7 May that year. It shares a quirk with Santa Luċija, the hamlet belonging to Kerċem, as the pair are the island’s only two localities that carry their patron saint’s name.

A statue from Marseilles and an August feast

The statue of St Lawrence was made in Marseilles by Louis Ramat, who had just taken over the Gallard et Fils workshop. It arrived on Gozo on 4 August 1895, was carried in procession from the Collegiate church of Għarb, and went round the village streets for the first time on 10 August, at that year’s festa.

The feast is still held in the first week of August, and in 2026 it fell on the 9th. Because the patron is a martyr, the festa colour is red, in line with the Gozitan custom the Ministry describes. There’s no official calendar for 2027 yet.

What’s at the Ta’ Dbieġi Crafts Village?

Beside the village is the Ta’ Dbieġi Crafts Village, which the Ministry also places close to Għarb. It’s a cluster of workshops where you can watch craftspeople at work and buy what they make, from mouth-blown glass and Gozo lace to pottery and filigree. If you’re after a souvenir made on the island rather than in a factory, I’d look here before the shops in Victoria.

The square and the countryside around it

The Ministry makes a point of saying the village square is especially photogenic, and I’d catch it late in the afternoon, on your way back from the coast. Around it the land is all hills and terraced fields, and the three hills that ring the plain make handy landmarks on any walk. Ta’ Għammar, on the far side, is the hill with Ta’ Pinu’s Stations of the Cross, and Ta’ Dbieġi is where the valley that ends at Wied il-Għasri begins.

For walkers and cyclists, the Ministry also suggests the route from Kerċem, which reaches San Lawrenz through the interior or drops straight down to Dwejra. It’s a good way to grasp that distances in western Gozo are short, and that almost everything can be done on foot when the heat allows.

Staying in San Lawrenz and getting about

The Ministry stresses that, despite the five-star Kempinski San Lawrenz on its outskirts, the village has held on to its rural way of life. That hotel, with 117 rooms on the MTA register, ranks among the island’s pair of five-star hotels and is the only hotel in the village on that list. Around it you’ll find farmhouses to let.

Without a car, the 311 connects Victoria with Dwejra and stops in the village on the way. To do the west in a single day, I’d take Dwejra in the morning, the crafts village around lunchtime and the Ta’ Pinu Basilica in the afternoon.