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Ninety seconds on Dwejra Tower
Din l-Art Ħelwa lists Monday to Friday, 9.00 am to 2.00 pm. Its summer timetable has run later, to 3.00 pm on weekdays and from noon to 5.00 pm on Sundays, so the hours shift with the season. The tower's Facebook page posts the next opening days.
Visitors report that entry is free during opening hours. A visit takes in the information panels on the tower's history and the climb through the square opening to the repaired roof.
Bus 311 runs from Victoria to the Dwejra stop. Drivers follow the signs for San Lawrenz and Dwejra and park near the Inland Sea and Dwejra Bay, then walk the short rocky track up to the entrance.
The final stretch is a short rocky track climbing off the Inland Sea road. Walkers coming the whole way from Victoria can follow the official Dwejra Walk, 13 km and graded moderate, with some steep inclines and a few rocky areas.
Din l-Art Ħelwa, the heritage trust that restored it, has held the tower in guardianship from the Maltese government since 2003. It keeps the tower accessible and secure and uses it to explain the protected landscape around it.
British forces used the tower for coastal defence and to enforce quarantine. In both World Wars it was an observation post, and the roof still gives the same open view over the sea towards Sicily.
After a short climb from the Dwejra car park, you can stand on the roof of this squat Knights' watchtower, high above Fungus Rock, the rock it was built to guard.
Dwejra Tower is a square block of fossil-rich globigerina limestone on the slope above Dwejra Bay. Its base measures 12 m on each side, and the walls are 3.5 m thick: two skins of stone with rubble packed between them.
The lower courses show best on the approach: the bottom five rise straight and form a podium, and above them all four walls lean inwards, which gives the tower its stocky outline.
The Knights of St John completed it in 1652, under Grand Master Lascaris, to watch for pirates and guard the 60 m rock just offshore. Inside, a square opening in the ceiling leads up to the repaired roof.
A track leaves the main road to the Inland Sea close to the Dwejra bus stop and car park. The tower stands a short climb up it, on the slope above the bay.
Inside, panels in Maltese and English explain the tower's history and its Second World War role as a guard for western Gozo. Read them on the ground floor first.
Then climb through the hatch to the roof. From there the view takes in Fungus Rock, the Inland Sea and the long line of the Dwejra cliffs.
Before or after the climb, walk the short coastal path out along the headland from the Dwejra car park. It gives an unobstructed view of the tower and the cliffs around it, an angle you miss if you stay down by the Inland Sea.
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