Travel

Going on a Bumpy Ferry Ride to House Hunt on Gozo Island

The ferry felt like a 25-minute amusement park attraction

View on Għajnsielem from the ferry terminal on Gozo — photo by author.

Our workaway hosts gave us an unexpected day off. We wanted to visit Gozo, which is the smaller island next to Malta, roughly five kilometers away, or a 25 minute ferry ride. We figured this was an ideal day to do it, not having to ask for a day off.

We came to Malta to explore the possibility to find a new home. It immediately felt right when we arrived, though there was a lot to figure out. The general vibe was good, but there’s a lot more to take into account. Prices vary wildly, depending on where you want to live. A swanky apartment in the center of Valletta — where we’re currently staying — can easily set you back several thousands of euros a month. There are also cheaper areas, but you usually get what you pay for, whether that’s a slightly remote place or something with flaws or less “luxury”.

When we left Valletta, it was still raining a little — photo by author, taken from dashcam.

Ideally, we would like to rent a place to get a good feel of the area and eventually buy something. The problem is that the real estate market is not regulated and you have to be careful who you’re dealing with. Renting straight from the owner is usually cheaper, but comes with risks, so we chose to go to a reputable agency. Additionally, misrepresentation with fake photos is a big problem and owners usually also list their property with several agencies at the same time.

You often don’t know exactly what you’ll get, nor if it’s still available.

Our day off started with a lot of wind and rain, and even some hail. The fast passenger ferries that went from Valletta to Gozo were cancelled because of the foul weather. We weren’t sure what to do and even when we were already sitting in the car, ready to leave, we were still doubting if it was a good idea to drive all the way to Ċirkewwa in the north — about 45 minutes if traffic cooperated — maybe to find out the ferry had been cancelled by then. We bit the bullet and went.

In the queue to go to Gozo — photo by author.

On the drive there, the weather changed several times: rain, sun, some hail. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, the weather was sunny, but very windy.

Fun fact about this ferry connection: going to Gozo is free, but you have to pay to get back. It was 20.35 euro for our car and the two of us.

This service runs 24 hours/day and during peak hours, there’s a ferry every 30 minutes. We only had to wait about 20 minutes to get on board. We went straight to the “sun deck”, which was actually sunny. The ferry left and I started taking photos. Out of the harbor, the sea got rougher. The woman of the couple standing next to us was drinking a coffee out of a paper cup, or at least she tried drinking it — most spilled because of the wind. Her husband laughed and so did we. She ducked below the railing, out of the wind to drink, and said something to her husband… in Dutch. As it turned out, they were from a town near Antwerp, only 16 kilometers from where we used to live.

Stills from a video I shot, resting the camera on the railing — photos by author.

The boat rocked heavily even though the sea didn’t seem that wild — probably because the boat went parallel with the waves instead of straight into them. My wife wasn’t feeling too good and had to sit down. Oddly enough, it hardly affected me — focusing on getting good photos probably took my mind of the possibility of sinking. Then a big wave hit the ship, soaking pretty much everybody on the sun deck.

That was my cue to go back inside.

Approaching Gozo, the first place you see is Għajnsielem — photo by author.

Less than half an hour after leaving Malta, we were on Gozo. We drove straight to Victoria, the capital of Malta’s little brother. There were two real estate agencies we wanted to visit. The first one we went in, we were welcomed by a Canadian young man who had come to Gozo only three years earlier — he was in charge of rentals, while his boss did sales. We told him what we were looking for and half an hour later we were already looking at an apartment a few kilometers away.

To be fair, on Gozo everything is only a few kilometers away.

The apartment was great, but the location was not what we were looking for. He said he’d look what else he had that could possibly interest us and would send us the listings. We said our goodbyes and left.

Driving into Victoria — photo by author, taken from dashcam.

We drove to a few towns that looked right for us, just to get a feel of the vibe, and then returned to the Mġarr ferry terminal. By the time we arrived there, the agent had already sent us several properties to look at.

Ferry heading for Gozo — photos by author.

We paid for our ticket and drove to the queue. Ten minutes later we were already on board. We went to the sun deck again and stayed there during the entire trip. As we were passing the small island of Comino, in between Malta and Gozo, we saw a ferry going in the opposite direction. It rocked heavily, while ours didn’t, or at least not that much; it seemed the rough sea was only for the people going to Gozo — the free part of the ride came with a price after all.

As I’m writing this, we have our eye on two apartments — one on Gozo and one on Malta. If all goes well, we’ll visit them both within a few days and maybe we can start planning our immediate future here.

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