Thank you for identifying yourselves on your comments. Such cooperative readers. 🙂

Shirley received some exciting non-Malta related news. Mary Brunkow who just won the Nobel Prize in Medicine is Shirley’s former grad student!

Now back to Malta. Our guide for the day, Ingrid, and our driver, Chris, picked us up at 9 am and took us by ferry to Gozo. Gozo is the island to the north of the island of Malta. Relatively few people live on Gozo so our tour was not an urban one.

First stop: the Ġgantija Temples and Heritage Park. There are the remains of two temples at the park that were built between 3600 BC and 3200 BC which makes them older than Stonehenge. There’s not a lot left of the temples but there are a lot of theories about how they were used. The remaining walls show construction with big boulders mixed with small rocks with no binding agent. Some of the walls are starting to fall apart, and have been supported with scaffolding. Malta heritage law says that there can be no changes or restoration or else the UNESCO designation will be void. So unlike Angkor Wat, there has been no effort to restore the temples from the fallen rocks around the base.

The site was rich with prickly pear cacti. The pears are not in season so we are unlikely to see them on a restaurant menu, but our guide said they are very tasty indeed.

Next stop – Xerri’s Grotto. In the early 20th century, a homeowner decided to drill a well and install a pump inside his home. It didn’t take long for him to discover a grotto 32 feet under his house. His family now charges €3 for a guided tour.

Eventually, Mr. Xerri was able to drill his well and there’s a working pump inside the house.

We stopped at some salt pans on our way to lunch. During the month of June, July and August, the ocean fills the pans and the hot weather evaporates the water, leaving salt behind. These pens have been used for 350 years to provide salt for the island and for export. Such a simple technology – it’s a wonder.

We stopped for lunch in Xlendi, which is a lovely seaside setting for a restaurant. Lunch was delicious. We’re finding the food in Malta can be a real treat.

We took the ferry back to Malta later in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and we got a good view, but sadly no good photo, of the infamous Blue Grotto. The water looks so blue because it is shallow and the sea bottom is sand. It is much in demand, especially by younger people with their loud music – so says Ingrid. She further says that unless we want to have absolutely no space to ourselves, there’s no point going in the high season – so we didn’t. 😉

Here are a few photos of our short ferry ride back to Valletta. We have had such luck with weather!

Dinner this evening was at the Guzé Bistro. Shirley tried the national dish of rabbit. I was more conservative and had the pork belly. Both our meals were lovely.

Ħin għas-sodda. Għada se mmorru nżuru l-għajjat.