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Published: April 9th 2007
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He arrived!
Ahmed's first trip outside of Egypt - he made it! Well, well - who would have thought that I would end up back in Cyprus with my Egyptian husband? After the harrowing adventure in Cairo to get Ahmed his first ever visa to a European country, we were off on a shaky EgyptAir flight to the lovely island of Cyprus. There are certain places in the world that I feel are truly just great hangout spots (Alexandria, Venice, that cool restaurant on the Nile in Luxor where I eat at), and Cyprus is certainly in this category, too. Not one particular place - just the whole island itself.
We started out staying in Larnaka for a couple of nights (by the way, if you're looking for a nice apartment hotel, stay at Petrou Bros. Apartments - lousy parking, but great location overall). From this city, we drove to Nicosia for a day for some shopping and eating.
Really, there is not a whole lot to see in Larnaka, so after leaving, we went on one of my favourite drives ever in my life - we drove from Larnaka to Pafos! It's a bit of a long haul, but the sun was shining, the air was warm, and the
Yummy
Mmm, of course we found the ice-cream parlour! landscape amazing! It's funny how sometime we would start down a little country road, and then I would remember driving down the same road with Christine - this was actually helpful at times when I thought that we had gotten lost. No, I didn't want to go to all of the same places that I had been, but we did end up hitting some of the same ones just because I knew that Ahmed would like them. We went to Kolossi Castle (found a beautiful wall painting I didn't notice before), and then we went to Kurion - a beautiful site full of mosaics, a theatre, and other places to hike to. The best thing is that it is up on a high hill, allowing for great shots of the surrouding farmland and the blue, blue ocean. We then decided to avoid the highway, and try a back road - great choice! We ended up going through the country to a coastal road which took us eventually back to the highway, but the views were better on the backroad. We also found our way to various other little stops along the way. Cyprus has such good signage that you don't
even need a map between cities - just follow the signs and look for the brown ones - these are for ancient sites.
We ended up in Pafos at our cool hotel (Kissos Hotel) after getting lost in many old, narrow, one-way streets, and then hit a fancy restaruant for a great Italian meal. The rest of the night was spent on the main strip with all the British tourists, enjoying the sunset.
The next day we headed for the famous Pafos Mosaics Site - this time, I explored the park much more, as there are many walking paths through the beautiful fields of flowers. This is the only day that we needed our umbrella, but only for a short while. Then it cleared up. These mosaics are just stunning! Next, we headed to a site that I wanted to visit last time I was here, but didn't have time to - the Tombs of the Kings (not actually made for kings, but for nobles). This is a cool site to wander around. You can enter many of the tombs, most of which are not really underground (not like Valley of the Kings in Luxor), but are instead
Lovely Coast
The colour of the water was amazing. in areas that have been dug out between the hills and such. One beautiful tomb even had Greek-style columns as part of the outer design, and with the vines of flowers hanging around, it was gorgeous. Later this night, we got Ahmed his fresh fish dinner (he wasn't sure about the name of what he chose from the display case, but he said it tasted good). We enjoyed walking around our last night in Pafos, and got ready to drive back to Limassol for the rest of the trip.
Limassol was busy when we were there. It was Easter weekend, and we knew some things would be closed. Sadly, Limassol Castle and Museum was closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday (thought it would be open Saturday), so this was the only thing that Ahmed could not see that he wanted to see. It sort of worked to his advantage, as we decided to go to the mountains for two days of driving around instead of only one. Both days in the mountains were great. For Ahmed, the best day was, of course, the day we went way up the mountain and he got to see and feel snow. He also
Famous Mosaics
Cyprus if famous for its mosaics - these were the UNESCO protected ones in Pafos. informed me during one of our forest walks that this was the first time that he has been in a forest ever! Wow.
Sadly, the trip came to and end, like all others. We ended it on a good note according to Ahmed because we stopped to see the Mosque of Sultan Hala Tekkese (spelling??) on our way to the airport.
Now that Ahmed has one European visa, I wonder where we will go next year???
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