Ta’ Kola Windmill, the windmill in Xaghra on the island of Gozo in Malta, is a building that visitors do not pass by without stopping by and add to the list of places to visit in Gozo.
Built in 1725, the windmill was rebuilt in the 1780s due to the poor quality of the material it was made of and opened as a museum in 1992. Ta’ Kola Mill is named after the last miller who controlled this structure. Although the miller’s name was Guzeppi Grech, he was known as Zeppu ta’ kola. On the ground floor of the windmill you can see some of the tools used for daily life. Most of these tools were made by the miller.
Since working in a windmill is a profession passed down from father to son and a respectable element, the owners used to sleep here. That’s why there is a kitchen, dining room and bedroom on the first floor. The kitchen utensils and furniture are very different from the ones used today, more traditional. In the bedrooms, you can see the clothes of the last owner of the mill.
There is a small model of the windmill on the same floor. You can see how it looked originally from the model at the entrance to the garden leading to the restrooms.
The top floor, reached by narrow stairs, is where the windmill leaves enter. When we visited, one of the windmills had been damaged by the strong winds the previous week, so the leaves had been removed and taken into care. The museum attendant who told us this was very interested and enthusiastic about the story of the windmill.
There are buses every hour from Victoria, the center of Gozo, to the windmill. With bus number 307, you just need to get off at Xaghra or Tigrija stop. If you are coming from the ferry, there are buses to the windmill twice an hour.
