Over the weekend we were happy to host Katherine, a friend from Arlington now living in Germany, who just so happened to be running a half-marathon in Malta. Despite the ever-changing weather, we had a nice couple of days full of eating and a little bit of sightseeing mixed in.
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| Waterfront in southern Malta, near the caves |
On Saturday the three of us, along with classmates John, Dee and Erin, headed out to explore the Għar Dalam cave and museum, an archeological site where tens of thousands of prehistoric animal remains have been discovered. Now extinct, some of the animals found there include pygmy elephants and hippos, wolves, foxes, deer, bear and much more. These animals arrived at a time when Malta was connected to the Italian mainland,
Not Africa as they are clear to point out. The little museum imparts some quick science and displays thousands of (mostly small) animal bones, which are more impressive for their quantity rather than individual interest.
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| Clockwise from red: Erin, Katherine, Alli, Dee, John |
The caves themselves lie at the end of a nice little garden walk and are apparently guarded by a large colony of bees at the entrance. They didn't bother anyone, but the loud buzzing sound amplified by the cave walls certainly makes for an unsettling welcome.
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| inside the cave |
Just outside the caves on a patio is a typical view of the Maltese countryside. To an outsider it's deceptively average, but a particularly friendly curator explained what we were looking at. The other side is where the caves continued before collapsing and being washed out by the valley spread before us. And the structures across the way (see photo below) that are commonplace in Malta were built by the Knights in the 15th or 16th century (bottom-center), the British around the time of WWII (middle-left) and the Romans in maybe the 1st century B.C. (top-right).
Overall, the caves weren't the most impressive place we've visited, but it was definitely interesting.
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| Rome, Knights and WWII. History abounds in Malta |
Though the day had started sunny and warmish, by the time we were bussing back to Valletta some pretty heavy rain moved in. We had a leisurely lunch, decided to break for the day and then regrouped for dinner at the wonderful Ta' Kris restaurant, which we highly recommend should you ever find yourself in Malta.
Luckily for Katherine and the 2,000 plus other runners, the rain broke overnight and they had a pleasant, sunny race day. At around noonish, Allison and I headed down to the finish line, conveniently located just around the corner from our place along the Sliema waterfront. Right on schedule, Katherine triumphantly crossed the finish line like a champ.
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| The scene. Where are the runners? |
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| Drag racing. Not Katherine. |
All in all, it was a great little weekend and we appreciated seeing a friendly face from home, while Katherine appreciated what the sun looks and feels like (German winters are apparently none too pleasant). If anyone else wants to follow in Katherine's footsteps and come visit us, you better get on it. Unbelievably, we have less than three months time remaining in Malta!
Bye for now and thanks for reading!
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