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The museum is housed in a cluster of interconnected houses in Bernardo de Opuo Street at the Citadel, Victoria, Gozo. It hosts a wide range of exhibits illustrating the local domestic, rural, and traditional ways of life.

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Description

The Gran Castello Historic House opens on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and on Sundays between 10:00hrs and 16:30hrs. 

The museum is housed in a cluster of interconnected houses in Bernardo de Opuo Street at the Citadel, Victoria, Gozo. It hosts a wide range of exhibits illustrating the local domestic, rural, and traditional ways of life.

The architectural features of these houses betray some Sicilian and Catalan influences and show knowledge of a sophisticated Late Gothic style. Their fine quality reveals that these properties belonged to wealthy families. In 1983, these houses were rehabilitated as a museum.

The ground floor and mezzanine levels of the southern house feature a reconstructed historic house set-up complete with work and habitation spaces for the serving personnel. The remaining ground floor spaces in the rest of the residential complex are devoted largely to rural trades and skills, mainly agriculture. A spectacular beast-driven mill occupies the centre of a large mill-room on the same floor. Grain and liquid measures as well as different types of scales and weights occupy respectively two adjacent spaces.

Once the living quarters of the resident wealthy families, the first floor hosts an exhibition of items related to important local crafts, such as lace-making and weaving. These are complemented by items connected to the cotton industry, like the cotton gin and the spinning wheel. Another small part of the first-floor collection is devoted to the traditional fishing industry.

The Gran Castello Historic House is now also offering an additional experience to the visitor through an audio-visual presentation about the late Mediaeval set-up of the same house within its contemporary urban context.

Other Heritage Malta sites in the vicinity: Gozo Museum of ArchaeologyGozo Nature Museum and the Old Prison.