Ta Tina Villa

Qala is a quiet farming town on the east coast of Gozo. Ideal to relax and get away from everything, you won’t find large supermarkets or internet cafes but you will find really friendly locals, plenty of cheap bars and places to eat. Within walking distance of the local beach (although we had that much snorkel gear we never did) which was singly but very clean, equipped with WC bar/pizzeria/cafe with a range of 10 different Magnums!
You could see the turquoise waters of Comino from there and we hired a boat to take us over to snorkel at 4.30 in the afternoon, it was a bit cooler by then and most of the boat trips had gone home so we had the place more to ourselves. With white sand and clear sea that’s not very deep its ideal for first timers, and our friends borrowed our equipment, although I was the only one to see a strange fish on the sea bottom, it saw me and had wings that it flapped to warn me off, then it started to jab at the sea bed with 2 probes at the front of course by the time I called the others over it had gone and I had no camera to prove it.
We traveled to Malta for the Valletta market and shopping in the capital, the ferry is excellent, cheap and reliable and we finally got to see the Hypogeum, a 3000 year old catacomb we tried to see 3 years ago, that’s older than the pyramids! Only 10 people an hour get to go in so you must book, there are many ancient sights if snorkeling and sun bathing is not your thing and plenty of fab churches to visit. Our villa was a 2 bed farm house at the top of a hill with its own cockerel, the shops were a walk away but too much to climb fully laden in the heat of the day but the locals had a great solution, local delivery.
You could either pick your stuff and get it delivered or various deliverers came round honking to let us know they were there, we regularly bought off the veg, pop, grocer, baker, but we did miss the fishmonger, great service and really fresh. We joined the local festa celebration on a night of local song and dance, they also had rows and rows of local produce and handicrafts that must have been judged but not quite like our home town flower show because they had live chickens and guinea pigs on show. The locals were fine about us joining in and found it funny when we couldn't handle the large glass of local home brew they gave all us free.
The villa was kept clean by the housekeeper and pool attendant and they responded quickly to repairs even when it was a bed that broke! All in all it was a great holiday with something for everyone, but what made it special was the friends we went with. We will definitely go back. The next time the 20th century gets on top of us!