Fontana — a village named after its natural spring, with a 17th-century Knights' aqueduct and a public laundry that still works today. A living monument on Gozo's main road.
On the dry, limestone Maltese archipelago, drinking water was more precious than gold. The village of Fontana (in Maltese il-Funtana) owes its name to a natural spring that has supplied the area with water for centuries. In the 17th century, the Knights of Malta built a stone aqueduct and channel system here to distribute the water more efficiently.
A public laundry was built alongside the aqueduct — stone troughs fed by water from the spring. Women from surrounding villages would come here to wash linen, exchange gossip, and settle neighbourhood matters. What is surprising: the laundry still works today. Not as a museum or tourist attraction, but as an active public facility. Women of Fontana still bring their washing here, though less frequently than before.
The aqueduct and laundry stand by the main road between Victoria and Għarb, but most tourists drive past without knowing what they are looking at. This is one of those places on Gozo where daily life and history overlap without any staging. The stone troughs, polished by hundreds of years of use, say more than many a monument.
Practical tip: The laundry is right on the main road in Fontana and is easy to miss. Look for stone troughs on the left side when driving from Victoria towards Għarb.
Between Victoria and Għarb. The laundry is right by the main road.
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A treasury of Gozitan specialties: cheese, lace, nougat, capers. Free cheese tasting. Squire Bartek wanted to move in.
Gozo's only natural freshwater spring feeds a Knight's washhouse from 1373 — still used by locals today. Perhaps the oldest continuously operating laundry in Europe, on the historic road from Victoria to Xlendi.
Lunzjata Valley is one of Gozo's few sites with a permanent freshwater spring. A chapel from 1347 and a fountain from 1698 testify to centuries of significance.