Mary Ann was away at a linguistics conference in Nicosia for a couple of days at the end of this week. While she was gone, it rained! Everyone was very surprised. On the mouseover picture, you can see my new little grape arbor -- the fruit of last month's efforts. The grapevine has a long way to grow, still, and I need to finish paving the patio under it, but all-in-all it's not too bad. It was a bit sad to have Mary Ann gone, but the kids are mostly settled into daycare now, so things went okay.

Mary Ann got home on Saturday night, and then on Sunday we drove back to Lefke to explore the ruined city of Soli. The city used to be the capital of one of the main kingdoms of Cyprus, very wealthy due to copper mining and farming. It used to have a very large basilica on the site of St. Mark's baptism during his visit to Cyprus. Sadly it was damaged by an earthquake and then destroyed during Arab attacks in the 7th century. The copper mines were shut down in the 4th century so there was no longer enough money or importance in Soli for it to be rebuilt. The city laid buried and forgotten until the early 1900s.

There's not much of Soli to see. The main draw is the mosaics from the floor of the giant basilica. Higher up the hill, there is an old theater -- Roman built on top of an older Greek. Most of the big stones from theater were taken away by the British to use building Port Said in Egypt, though. The remainder has been heavily restored (up to half of the original height) and is used for summer-time outdoor productions. So it is not really an archaeological site anymore. The frog insisted that he and Mary Ann put on a show for baby sister and me while we were there -- Mary Ann was supposed to stand and look away from him, while he crept up behind her. It was a 'sneaking show'. Very dramatic. Lots of tension.

As we were coming down the hill from the theater, Mary Ann commented that she would be glad to get out of the sun. The frog told her that, in that case, he had spotted a good place to rest. As he walked down he kept assuring her "we're getting close to the place that I spotted" and "the place that I spotted is just around the corner." After arriving he asked her "aren't you glad that I spotted this place to rest?"

Just a short ways up the mountains from Soli is the ruins of Vouni Palace from the 5th to 4th century BC. Above the palace, at the very top of the mountain are the ruins of a temple to Athena. From there you can look out over the mountains to the south or off to the sea to the north.

The kids were kind of tired out, so we let them sit and play under a tree while we explored the ruins.

After exploring Soli and Vouni palace, we hopped down from the mountains to the beach. Mary Ann wanted to try out a new spot -- a restaurant called Aspava. Their kebab was good, though Mary Ann didn't like their hummus. Interestingly, next to the restaurant was a short pier with lockers containing wind-surfing equipment. It looked like there might be someone who teaches wind-surfing out of there... something to file away for future investigation.

There wasn't really any beach at Aspava. It was also very rocky for the first three or four feet into the water, which was unpleasant. Once we got out into the water, though, there was plenty of soft sand, and it stayed shallow pretty far out, which is good for the frog. It was a very windy day, though, so the waves were quite high.

After jumping waves and splashing around in the water for a while, we retired to the end of the long pier to dry off and relax. It does seem like it would be a good place for dinner -- way out over the water. But it wasn't that great of a place for swimming. Sadly, the kids seem to have inherited Mary Ann's inability to tan. A month of hanging out at the beach, and they're all still white as slugs.