Victoria

The hill at the centre of Gozo has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, and the site of the Cittadella is believed to have been the acropolis of the Punic-Roman town of Gaulos. In the Middle Ages the acropolis became a castle that served as a refuge for the island's people, and by the 15th century a suburb, Rabat, was growing outside its walls; that suburb is the historic core of the town today. The castle's defences were already obsolete in 1551, when an Ottoman force invaded Gozo and sacked it.

Between 1599 and 1622 the southern walls were rebuilt as a gunpowder fortress, while the northern walls kept their medieval form. Plans to demolish the citadel came up repeatedly in the 17th and 18th centuries but were never carried out, and the cathedral was rebuilt between 1697 and 1711 to designs by Lorenzo Gafà, who also built Mdina's cathedral. During the French invasion of 1798 and the uprising that followed, the fortress surrendered without much of a fight.

The British decommissioned the citadel in 1868. The cathedral became the seat of the new Diocese of Gozo in 1864, and on 10 June 1887, at the request of the Bishop of Gozo, the British government renamed the town Victoria for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. The citadel has been on Malta's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage status since 1998.

The town's culture turns on its parishes and their bands. The cathedral's feast of the Assumption on 15 August and St George's feast on the third Sunday of July are the two main feasts of the year, among five celebrated in the town. Their rivalry has a long history: the Leone Philharmonic Society, founded in 1863, and its first offshoot, La Stella, founded in 1880, fell out, and the Leone band took the Assumption while La Stella took St George. The statue of the Assumption in the cathedral was donated by the Leone society, and arguments between the bands continued for decades before it was handed over in 1956.

St George's is a personal parish rather than a territorial one, serving about half of the town. Its wooden statue of the saint, carved by Pietro Paolo Azzopardi, was the first titular statue on the island, and its Heart of Gozo: Il-Hagar museum, opened in 2013, was the first building in the country built for the purpose of a museum. The season of feasts ends with Our Lady of Divine Grace, kept by the Capuchin friars.

The town keeps two names: Victoria on the maps and Rabat for many Gozitans, especially older ones.

Victoria is the most populous settlement on Gozo, with about 7,500 people in 2024, of whom 1,690 were foreign nationals. Its bus station is about five minutes' walk from Independence Square, and the citadel above draws many of the visitors who come over from Malta for the day. The surrounding countryside is farmland, visible from the walls on every side.

Life in the old town still gathers around Independence Square, It-Tokk, with its weekday market, the old Banca Giuratale and the war memorial, and around the two great churches. In the newer town, the Villa Rundle Gardens lie between Republic Street and the main car park. A war shelter lies beneath the citadel, and the war memorial stands in the square.

Many Gozitans, older ones especially, still call the town Rabat, the name of its old centre, and the cathedral and St George's, with their rival band clubs, remain at the heart of local life. Beyond the town, roads run out through the farmland to the villages of the island, which are a short ride away by bus or car.

Gozo's best-known food is its cheese. Ġbejna, plural ġbejniet, is a small round cheese made from sheep's milk, salt and rennet; the name is a diminutive of ġobna, "cheese", and is rendered in Maltese English as cheeselet. Most of the sheep's milk produced in Malta goes into these little cheeses, which also turn up in Maltese bread fillings and in Lenten fritters.

The other Gozitan speciality is ftira Għawdxija, a flatbread topped or filled with potatoes or ġbejniet, together with eggs, grated cheese, tomatoes, anchovies, olives, ricotta or Maltese sausage. Like the rest of Malta, Gozo eats pastizzi, savoury pastries of ricotta or curried peas, and Maltese bread made into ħobż biż-żejt with tomato, olive oil, tuna, capers and olives.

For a bigger meal there is stuffat tal-fenek, rabbit stew, often called the national dish, and in Lent fish and dishes such as stuffed artichokes, qaqoċċ mimli. Kinnie, the bittersweet soft drink made from bitter oranges and wormwood extracts, has a reputation as Malta's favourite non-alcoholic drink.