Yoga in Gozo

You have to be a right poseur on a holiday to Gozo says Lauren Booth in The Belfast Telegraph:

On the ferry from Malta to Gozo I had time to ponder how my family would cope with a holiday that was all about me. A Yogatraveller break, essentially a yoga course in an exotic location, does not allow for husbandly hangovers. Nor, as it turned out, would sleep-ins be part of the package.

Things started hopefully enough. Halfway between Gibraltar and Alexandria, Sicily and North Africa, Gozo has been at the crossroads of trade and battle routes since Odysseus was a lad. Our first glimpse of the island, whose name means "joy" in Castilian (the title given by the Aragonese in 1282), bought gasps of "oh wow" from my easily unimpressed family.

Dolphins frolicked beside the ferry as little fishing boats bobbed in an azure sea. High above on a rocky peak, the Lady of Lourdes church, her warm orange walls reddened by late afternoon sun, observed the terraced fields in supplication below. Maybe, just maybe, "mum's choice" of holiday would work out fine after all.

Our apartment, Ta Sbejha, was a plush, traditionally decorated complex on the hills above the village of Gharb. The arches and the stonework spoke volumes about the island's centuries of Arab rule.

That first evening we strolled into Gharb, enchanted by the giant prickly pears that line the country roads. As dusk fell, the only sounds came from sheep hidden behind the traditional houses – wonderful reminders of the best local delicacy, a white cheese covered in black pepper and preserved in oil...