Gozo is a strange, hot, dusty island littered with tiny limestone villages, each dominated by a church the size of Durham Cathedral.
One village of a dozen houses even has a copy of the Venetian campanile of St Mark's rising up out of fields hedged by oleander, pear and cactus.
When I first drove round Malta's sister isle, it made no sense at all. But then I met Ann Monsarrat, widow of The Cruel Sea author Nicholas Monsarrat, who has lived here since 1967 and told me how an island no bigger than Jersey and with a population the size of Berwick-upon-Tweed - has built so many huge churches.
One, in the tiny village of Xewkija, boasts the third largest dome in Europe and was completed in 1970.
Gozo is a quiet island, a riverless limestone rock with a scruffy harbour, north African temperatures and Italianate architecture.
Nevertheless, I soon realised the Gozitans' reticence towards tourists is not matched in their social dealings. Loud explosions are heard almost every evening, accompanying each village's festa, parties linked to saints' days.
But the place where the competitive zeal of Gozo is most visible is in the capital, Rabat, on an outcrop of rock that was first fortified by Arabs in the 8th century.
Ann took me there to see the two opera houses at either end of Republic Street. Why would a town of 7,000 need two opera houses?
First we went to The Aurora, a 1,500-seat venue completed in 1976 and there solely because Rabat is divided between two contending parishes, the Cathedral and the Basilica of St George.
In response, the Basilica of St George built The Astra, a 1,700-seat opera house, opened in 1978. Each mounts one production a year when the parishioners club together to hire professional singers from Italy.
At the heart of Rabat is the Cathedral of St Mary, guarded by two naval cannon taken there by one of Gozo's maverick commissioners who, visiting Malta in the Seventies, appropriated them. No questions were asked. The Maltese know better than to start a feud with Gozo.
Typically baroque inside, the cathedral is remarkable in one respect. In 1732 when the time came to build the dome, the parishioners couldn't raise the cash, so an Italian painter created a trompe l'oeil on the ceiling.
It proved so convincing, the fake dome remains in place to this day - a rare occasion on which the parishioners of St Mary's decided not to compete with St George's Basilica.
Travelfacts Flights from Gatwick to Malta from £128.50 return (0870 850 9850 or www.ba.com). Car ferry from Malta to Gozo 1.75 Maltese lira (£2.50) return. Holiday Autos offers one week's rental from £159 (0870 400 0010 or www.holidayautos.co.uk). San Lawrenz Leisure Resort (00 356 21 558 640) has rooms from LM40 (£65) per person per night.