Village with a 17th-century aqueduct and a public laundry still in use! prowadzący walks among stone channels and tells of the Knights' water system.
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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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Medieval washhouse from 1373, built around Gozo's only natural freshwater spring. The current structure was erected in 1685 by the Knights of St. John and is still used by locals. The village of Fontana is named after the Italian word for "fountain".
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