Gozo's north east coast is a series of bluffs enveloping bamboo-bristled valleys that open up, on the shoreline, on a deserted cove. These coves, some sandy while others rocky plateaus, are beautiful with their bleeding Mediterranean colours: the deep blue of the sea, amber of the sand, faded grey of the clay slopes, warm yellow of the inland cliffs, wilted green of the tamarisk trees.
This is a rural stretch of coast, and you will bump into farmers tending their badmington-court-sized fields stepping up the slope. Farmers are friendly, like to spin yarns about their childhood Gozo, and will invariably burden you with fruits and vegetables.
With a good botany book, you can appreciate the many flowering plants that make Gozo's flora so rich. Watch out for specials such as the Giant Orchid and the Rock Centaury, the endemic national plant.
Above all, this hike skirting the coast is a window on the Meditarrenean's best. It's a world of light and openness, and it feels a world apart: the afternoons bask in a warm stillness, the air fragranced by freshly turned earth and drying grasses and tinged with the salt of the sea.