Victoria (Rabat)
GozoLa capitale de Gozo : citadelle fortifiée, marché du matin, deux opéras et une rivalité de festa vieille de plusieurs siècles.
Ce guide est pour l'instant rédigé en anglais. L'essentiel est traduit.
Le lieu aujourd'hui
Nobody who lives here calls it Victoria. Ask for Rabat: the British renamed the town in 1887 and Gozitans nodded politely and carried on. Mornings belong to It-Tokk, the market square, for ġbejniet (small round cheeselets), capers, sun-dried tomatoes and a haggle over lace. Behind it, the alleys of Il-Borgo knot themselves around St George's basilica; above everything sit the Citadel's grey bastions, best climbed in late afternoon once the coach parties have gone. The town's great absurdity is its pride: about seven thousand residents, two rival band clubs, and consequently two full-sized opera houses, the Astra and the Aurora, a few doors apart on Republic Street, each staging its own opera every autumn and each convinced the other is deluded. In July the La Stella side celebrates St George; in August the Leone camp answers with Santa Marija and bareback horse races down the main street. Every bus on Gozo starts and ends here, so you'll pass through anyway. Stay for lunch at least.
Comment il en est arrivé là
The Citadel hill has been fortified since the Bronze Age and probably served as the acropolis of Gaulos, the Roman town on this spot. Under Arab rule the settlement below took the name Rabat ('suburb'), which it keeps in everyday speech. The worst day in Gozo's history came in July 1551, when an Ottoman force under Sinan Pasha and the corsair Dragut sacked the island and carried off nearly the entire population, perhaps five to six thousand people, into slavery; Gozo had to be repopulated with families from Malta. Fear ran so deep that until 1637 Gozitans were legally obliged to sleep inside the Citadel walls at night. The baroque Cathedral of the Assumption, designed by Lorenzo Gafà and finished in 1711, rose within those walls; money ran out for its dome, so a trompe-l'œil painting stands in for one. On 10 June 1887 the British renamed Rabat 'Victoria' for the queen's Golden Jubilee, at the request of Bishop Pietro Pace. The Citadel was restored between 2014 and 2016, and remains Gozo's administrative heart.