Sunset in Xlendi – Gozo
A lovely panoramic shot of the sun setting over Xlendi on an calm summer evening.
Ix-Xlendi is a village in Malta situated in the south west of the island of Gozo.
The name is probably derived from the word “xelandion”, a type of Byzantine vessel which may have anchored in the port. It is surrounded by the villages of Munxar, Fontana and Kerċem. Xlendi falls under Munxar for administrative purposes,though it does have its own coat of arms and motto. This village has a great topography with quite steep cliffs on the side and a valley on the back which takes rain water from the villages surrounding it (Kerċem, Munxar, Fontana and Victoria) into the bay.
The valley with its little bay on the left of the entrance to this bay is known as “il-Kantra”, an Arabic word indicating the shape of the valley itself. The tower was built by the Universitas (Gozo’s Local Government) in 1658. Its guns watched the entrance to the bay. In 1961 some amphorae were recovered from the seabed near this tower from about dept of 150 feet. They belonged to a Roman merchant ship which plied between Italy and Tunis carrying wine and corn in the first century A.D. and which was wrecked in a tempest. There were about 100 amphorae on the sea-bad, 60 of them whole: some are still there. The majority are Greco-Roman amphorae, but some are Punic. Those with a wide mouth were used for storing food: in fact animal bones have been found in some of them.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ & http://www.gozoviews.com/gozo-history/xlendi-bay
Location Map for Xlendi:
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