It’s eight o’clock in the morning in Xaghra, as in the rest of Central Europe. Last night it rained, the floor is wet and the cats of the alley are waiting for their daily meal or just for a scratch behind the ears.

I look at the horizon as I do everyday on my way to work. The sea is calm, blue and striped of many different shades; it’s a nice contrast with the vivid, lush green of the grass fields and the orange red colour Ramla’s sandy beach.

Above the horizon is a strip of white fluffy clouds and just below them, touching the horizon is a faint line of blue: Sicily.
Seen from Gozo, Sicily, the land of the Cyclops, is just a thin, blue smudge over the neat line of the horizon. None the less, it’s a marvellous spectacle.

- But how is it possible to see Sicily from here ? – told me once an Englishman. He sat on one of the wooden benches of the Gleaneagles Bar drinking his beer in huge sips. – I tell you, it’s bollocks! Even in the clearest day, an average man can only see as far as 2.89 miles. So how the hell would anyone be able to see a place as far as 60 miles. I tell you again, it’s just a legend!. -

It’s not a legend! On a very clear day, looking direction north of Gozo from elevated place such as Xaghra, Nadur or Zebbug, it is possible to see the blue silhoutte of the distant land of Sicily lingering over the horizon. Sometimes, it’s even possible to see the Etna, Europe’s highest vulcano, and it’s snowy peak. Then as the nights falls, a stream of distant lights appears above the dark like of the horizon.

I you look closely to this picture, squinting your eyes you will be able to see exactly what I described: a faint, somehow irregular, blue smudge: Sicily.