It’s not yet 6am, and the sun is not up. There is a stillness in the air and nature still sleeps on.

Down below, in the Mgarr harbour, one can barely hear the cars and trucks as they enter the Gozo Channel ships for the 6am crossing.

Out to sea, there are boats already, fishing and sometimes the muted sound of people talking to each other from boat to boat reaches up here.

‘Up here’ is on a terrace at Chambray. Chambray, I can say after a lush weekend spent there, is easily Gozo’s best kept secret.

Gozo is now the place to be in, say promoters Michael Caruana and Chris Grech. The new government has made a public commitment to kick-start a whole range of development projects in Gozo, from a new yacht marina to a new cruise liner terminal.

The recently revamped Foreign Residents Scheme, aimed to attract high-spending people from outside the EU, will entice more and more people to purchase properties in Gozo.

All this, coming together, with more and more Maltese purchasing properties in Gozo, will bring about a renaissance in Gozo, the two sincerely believe.

Ironically, filling Fort Chambray with residents implements the vision of the fort as it was planned by the Knights of Malta more than 200 years ago.

Fort Chambray was one of the last constructions by the Knights before Napoleon came to Malta and kicked them out, thus ending their 250 years in Malta.

In the mid-1780s, the Knights decided that the Cittadella in Rabat was too small to hold all the population of Gozo in case of an attack. Plans were made for a new fort to arise near Marsalforn but came to nought.

Then, seeking to build a fort near the sea, the Knights focused on the site above the small port of Mgarr. It was called Fort Chambray from the knight who forked out most of the expenses for it.

The newly-built fort had its moment of glory when the people of Gozo rose against the French and blockaded them in this fort before they surrendered and were allowed to leave.

The British, who came after the Knights, added some buildings to the fort and retained it as soldiers’ barracks. Then, with the departure of the British from Malta, the fort became neglected and unused.

Many attempts were made to reconstruct the fort and politics entered the game in the 1990s. In recent years, the fort is now owned by Dr Caruana who has bravely attempted to restore the historic parts of the fort while turning the fort into a residential space, just as it was planned by the Knights.

Significant parts of the restoration of the bastions and the fort have been completed and many buildings have been built. There are now, Dr Caruana told me, 160 residences that have been built in Phase 1 and 2 of the project and some 60% of them have already been sold.

Through my weekend experience, I found out some of the advantages of living in Chambray.

It is a residential area that will remain like that – in complete contrast to anything in any village or town. The residences have and enjoy their privacy. Some come with their own swimming pools while others are built around the large central swimming pool which serves as a focal point for the entire residence.

It is conveniently near the harbour but sufficiently removed from it to avoid all the noise, chaos and traffic jams down below. Enough said that on Sunday it was more the noise of power boats leaving and crossing over to Comino that attracted attention, rather than the continual coming and going of ships.

From an investment point of view, one must also consider the fact that the fort, by its very dimensions, is an enclosed area. So the building yet to be done in it has an outer limit and cannot be extended, which is more than can be said about any road on the island.

Even in the heatwave that enveloped Malta last weekend, the air up there was cool and refreshing. The lights of Malta at night never looked so clear and bright and the sight of so many boats, cabin cruisers, yachts and the like crossing between Gozo and Comino’s Blue Lagoon have to be seen to be believed.

There is surely no residence in Malta that can offer the quality of life that living in Fort Chambray can offer: living in an 18th Century fort and enjoying all the benefits of modern living, from swimming pools to air-conditioned rooms done up according to one’s own preference.

Residences come in various sizes and layouts, starting from €200,000 going up to €1.2 million for the best properties with adjacent private swimming pools. Each property comes freehold. Properties come in a semi-finished state with bathrooms and interior fittings done to the client’s own tastes.

One other advantage of this residence is that the landscaping and infrastructural works in the area of the residences has already been done and the passageways, the shrubs and bushes are kept in an immaculate state.

There is also unobtrusive but very presence security around to ward off the invasive presence of outsiders.