Malta's sister island, Gozo, is a small and rural island full of legend and romance. Its people have a rural gruffness and irreverence, and uniformly seem to live in sumptuously baroque townhouses.

The landscapes are beautiful - an interior of table-top hills and undulating valleys, and a coastline of bluffs and sandy beaches on the north and sheer cliffs on the south. Edward Lear, who visited in 1865, described its coastal scenery in his own inimitable style as "pomskizillious and gromphiberrous... there being no other words to describe its magnificence".

More mundanely Federico Mayor, UNESCO's chief until 1998, stated that Gozo in its entirety could be declared a World Heritage Site. Both are right. There isn't much in the way of nightlife or indeed any other sort of lively activity to be had; Gozo is a place to relax in delicious indolence in a beautiful setting and ramble around the picturesque towns and countryside.