Image: MUŻA, Valletta
Heritage Malta will open Xlendi Tower to the public for a free weekend event on 15 and 16 August, pairing access to the historic building with a virtual reality dive into the Xlendi Underwater Archaeological Park and the Phoenician Shipwreck. The open weekend is being organised by the Munxar Local Council in collaboration with Heritage Malta’s Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit.
According to the event listing, visitors will be able to step inside the tower on Gozo’s south-west coast and take in views over Xlendi Bay while exploring the site’s cultural history. The programme also includes an immersive VR experience, presented as a virtual descent beneath the surface to the underwater archaeological park and the Phoenician Shipwreck. Inside the tower, visitors will additionally find a display of underwater artefacts.
The event situates the tower within a broader maritime and archaeological landscape around the Maltese Islands. Heritage Malta’s listing notes that the seabed of Xlendi reflects millennia of human activity and identifies the Phoenician shipwreck off Ras il-Wardija as dating to the 7th century BC. It also describes the underwater park beneath the Xlendi Tower as the world’s first deep-water underwater archaeological park, opened to the diving public in 2023.
Xlendi Tower itself will be open from 09:00 to 12:00 and from 13:30 to 16:00 on both days. Admission is free, and no pre-booking is required. The open weekend is listed at Xlendi Tower in Munxar, Gozo.
Heritage Malta’s online announcement presents the weekend as a chance to encounter the site from two angles: as a historic tower with a panoramic coastal outlook and as a gateway to underwater cultural heritage. The organisation’s listing also notes that the Xlendi Underwater Archaeological Park is sponsored by the Malta Airport Foundation.
The open weekend is one of Heritage Malta’s public-facing events drawing together built heritage, underwater archaeology and digital interpretation at a single site. The free entry period runs across both days, 15 and 16 August, during the tower’s stated opening hours.
