Victoria’s Barefoot Festa: Inside Gozo’s Most Humble Yet Powerful Celebration
Feast of St Francis of Assisi in Victoria: How Gozo’s Quietest Town Turns Up the Volume for its Patron Saint
Victoria rarely shouts. On most days, the capital of Gozo moves to the unhurried rhythm of coffee cups clinking in Pjazza Indipendenza and old men arguing, half-whispering, over dominoes. Yet every first weekend of October the town drops its hush like a discarded scarf and lets the bells of St Francis basilica ring themselves hoarse. The Feast of St Francis of Assisi is not the island’s biggest festa—Nadur’s fireworks and Xlendi’s greasy pole still pull larger crowds—but it is arguably the most intimate, a neighbourhood party where the saint’s message of humility collides head-on with Maltese exuberance.
The story starts in 1539, when the Franciscans landed in Gozo and built a modest chapel outside the medieval walls. The present basilica, honey-coloured and baroque, went up in 1667 and has been the geographic and emotional heart of Victoria ever since. Locals still call the area “Ta’ Ġieżu” (of the Jesuits) even though the Franciscans have held the keys for four centuries; the linguistic slip is shrugged off as harmless gossip between religious orders.
Preparations begin in mid-September, when the parish youth group repaint the wooden balcony that will carry the 200-kg statue of the poor man of Assisi. It is the only festa statue on Gozo that is carried barefoot—no rubber-soled sneakers hidden under the cloak—so shoulders are padded with towels and prayers. “You feel every cobblestone,” admits 19-year-old Miguel Camilleri, balancing on a ladder while threading light-bulbs through artificial vine leaves. “But that’s the point; we carry him the way he carried Christ.”
By Friday evening the town’s soundscape has shifted. The metal shutters of narrow grocery shops become impromptu percussion instruments for marching bands rehearsing the hymn “Francisu F’Ġieħu”. Cafés that normally close at 9 pm stay open until the last trumpet packs up. Tourists wandering Citadel ramparts look down puzzled: where did all these neon arches come from? The answer is stored in a 40-foot container behind the church—decoration that would stretch four kilometres if laid end-to-end, all funded by the sale of €2 lottery tickets printed with smiling schoolchildren.
Saturday’s highlight is the “Ġirja tal-Ħaxix”, a leafy procession unique to Victoria. Children aged 6 to 12, dressed as friars with cardboard tonsures, carry baskets of rosemary, basil and marjoram picked from family gardens. They walk from the basilica to It-Tokk market, where farmers bless the herbs and slip sprigs into shoppers’ bags. Agronomist Maria Grech, coordinating the event, says the ritual began during WWII when food shortages forced families to flavour soups with wild herbs. “We turned scarcity into celebration,” she grins, crushing lavender between her fingers. “Now it’s a subtle reminder that sustainability isn’t a hipster trend; it’s Maltese grandmothers’ common sense.”
Social impact is measured in small currencies. The parish kitchen serves 800 plates of “ħobż biż-żejt u sardina” to the elderly who no longer cook, delivered by scouts on bicycles. The band club opens a free barber station so teenagers can stencil St Francis’ tau cross into undercuts. Even the rival football club, Victoria Hotspurs, suspends training, its president carrying a corner of the statue in a show of truce. “For 48 hours politics, grudges and football scores are paused,” says Mayor Samuel Azzopardi. “It’s like pressing Malta’s collective refresh button.”
Sunday’s pontifical Mass is broadcast on Radju Għawdex, but the real liturgy happens outside. At 11 am the statue emerges to a confetti storm of yellow and white—the papal colours—while a brass band segues from Ave Maria to “Eye of the Tiger” without dropping a beat. Fireworks manufactured in Xewkija sketch a dove in smoke above the Citadel, visible from the Malta ferry. By 8 pm the last petard has popped and Victoria exhales, streets swept clean by volunteers who compare blister sizes like battle scars.
As fireworks cool, the town slips back into its weekday whisper, but something lingers. Shopkeepers plant the blessed herbs in window boxes; children who marched barefoot keep their cardboard belts as bookmarks. In a country where festa season can feel like an arms race of decibels and euros, St Francis offers Gozo a quieter mirror: community spun from simplicity, celebration measured not in crowd size but in shoulders rubbed raw for a barefoot saint.
