The small island of Gozo, which sits off the North Western corner of Malta, hosted its annual Festival Mediterranea at the end of October and beginning of November.

The festival was a two week celebration of food, drink, dance, music and theatre with events designed for all age groups. Although concerts and operatic performances made up the mainstay of the festival there were all kinds of other events that formed part of the schedule. These included tours of various locations around the island, art exhibitions, lectures and visits to some of Gozo's best historical sites.

The musical parts of the programme included a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, a choral concert by the Laudate Pueri Choir and a piano recital by Elizabeth Leonardi.

Early in November there were two organised visits to Malta's Hypogeum and the nearby Tarxie temples. These are important archeological sites with the Hypogeum only being discovered at the start of the twentieth century. The necropolis is a series of chambers and passageways cut into the rock and dates back as far as 3600 BC. Due to the importance of the site access to visitors is very limited, with less than 100 people allowed inside each day. By visiting as part of the Gozo Festival Mediterranea you would have been assured a place and had the benefit of an experienced guide. Tickets for these excursions as part of the Festival were priced at 30 Euros. Other sites worthy of a visit whilst on Gozo include the Museum of Archaeology which is home to various treasures found during the excavation of the Xaghra Stone Circle, St George's Basilica in the centre of Rabat and the temples of Ggantija, the oldest free-standing structure in the world.