More amazing Neolithic temples today. Our first stop, after an interesting winding bus ride that took us past the Dingli cliffs was to Hagar Qim. There was an excellent little introductory museum and also a 4D movie about the site. As with the other two sites we’ve visited, the mind boggles on how the huge boulders were moved. According to the information on the site, there is/was a lot of limestone in the area so at least it didn’t need to be moved miles and miles from where it was quarried.
The second temple site, called Mnajdra is about a 10 walk towards the sea. According to information in the museum, both sites were again from around 3500BC and are supposed to be the oldest freestanding structures in the world.
We had a beer break on the sunny patio of the restaurant on the site and then took the bus to Dingli, passing the gorgeous cliffs which we plan to visit later this week. Our plan was to have lunch there, the guidebook claimed there were numerous cafes in the village, one restaurant which used a lot of local produce. When we first got off the bus we thought we’d made a mistake as we couldn’t see any cafes that were open. Then, whew, we came across Diar Il-Binet, the restaurant mentioned in the guide book. It was fabulous, the food was great and Caroline and I bought olive wood serving/cooking spoons for ourselves. We’re coming to walk part of the Dingli cliffs on Friday so we’ll be coming back here for lunch.
Dinner tonight at the local football club was not too exciting but ok.