Advertisement
Published: July 15th 2015
Edit Blog Post
July 14, 2015 – Today I got up around 7am and started to get ready for the day. I had to repack and have breakfast, and then I walked back to the beach, where I could get the intercity bus to Nicosia, the capital. The bus left at 9am and I arrived around 8:40. The bus takes 45 minutes in theory, but with traffic, we arrived sometime around 10:20. I took a city bus towards the apartment I rented, and then had to look a bit for the right street. The woman showed me the studio – it is quite small, but had everything I needed. And by everything, I mean air conditioning. Nicosia is not on the coast, and is even hotter, at 100 degrees. The a/c will help a lot.
Here, it also takes me about 20 minutes to get into the old city by foot, and those are some hot feet. It took a while to orient myself here, because the roads are not structured. Also, I have no sense of direction. At noon, I found myself still a little out of the center, but at the Cyprus Museum, where I had planned to go anyway. Once
in, I realized a free tour just started and I joined it. It took a little more than an hour and was very good. When the guide was done, I walked through a couple of other exhibits, including one dedicated to Polish archaeologists working in Cyprus for the last 50 years.
Next, I had another kebab for lunch in a small shop, and then started to walk around. I did part of the walking tour in the Lonely Planet, but also just wandered a bit as well. I went into the free Leventis Municipal Museum, which was very well done. It focuses on the history of Nicosia, which is interesting. Nicosia is the last divided capital in the world. There are two main populations here – Greeks, in the south, and Turkish, in the north. Despite being one country, Turkey still lays claim to the north and the people there use the Turkish lira, speak Turkish, etc. In the south they speak Greek and use the euro. After problems between the two, there was a line drawn down the center of Nicosia on a map in green pen, and today it is still called the Green Line. No one
crossed it since the 1970s, and the UN keeps the peace. In 2003, the Turkish side decided to reopen the border, and today people can cross 24 hours a day. It’s pretty interesting actually.
The city also has a really interesting shape, due to Venetian walls that surround it. It’s pretty cool actually. But this circular old town can be hard to walk, as the streets are not laid out in a grid or pattern. I tried for ages to get to the Municipal Arts Center. Eventually, I did. It is also free, and the exhibit there now is all videos by Israeli artists. It’s in an old warehouse/power station which is a cool setting, but the art was not to my taste. Only one video got my attention and it was 500 watermelons, linked together by string, curled up in a tight spiral in the sea. Some of the watermelons were bashed into, so it looked like they were bleeding. And there was a naked woman mixed in with them. And they were being pulled apart. It was weird, but pretty. I also tried to go to the Byzantine Art Museum, but it was 3:40pm and the museum
closed at 4pm. Maybe tomorrow. I walked around some more, bought an enormous cold water and chugged a great deal of it. My back and backpack were drenched, and I knew I needed more water.
On my walk home, I walked past another Fridays and a huge Starbucks, as well as a Wagamama, an Asian fusion type of place. I gave in and decided to eat at Fridays for dinner, as is typically the tradition when I find one abroad. I went back to the apartment first, then to Fridays. I got my chicken fingers, just like I have since I was 16, and on the way home I went all out and stopped at Starbucks. The frappaccino flavors weren’t as good as I’d hoped, so I took lemon vanilla. It wasn’t bad, but also not as good as I’d hoped. Then I saw they had fruit ones in a different part of the menu. I may convince myself to try another tomorrow. These foods are more expensive options than what I normally eat on a trip, but this is the midweek and the only real “vacation destination” of my trip. So I guess it’s alright?
After dinner
I chatted with my grandma, my mom and Jeroen on Skype. Not a bad way to end the day. Washed my dirty clothes, hung them up, and eventually got to sleep. Quiet and a/c here – perfect.
July 15, 2015 – Up at 7am again and had a slow start to the day. Had some granola, chatted with Jeroen, and was generally lazy until it was time to sun-screen up and head out. Today my plan was to visit North Nicosia, which meant crossing the Green Line. I had to bring my passport, since I was really entering Turkey. So weird. I bought another 1.5 liter water bottle just before the Green Line, since I didn’t plan to change money for a couple hours. I walked around the streets here, which were very different than the other part of the city. It felt more Turkish the way the streets were laid out; more of a bazaar environment. I went to the Selimiye mosque. It was a church that started construction in the 1200s and in 1571 it was converted to a mosque by the Ottomans. I also went to Buyk Han, which was built in 1572 and
used as an inn where travelers and traders could stop for the night and socialize. I tried to visit the Bedesten, but it was closed until 2:30pm. It used to be a church and was recently renovated to be more of a cultural center. But at noon, I saw a performance of the Whirling Dervishes there. They are a Muslim group that gets closer to God through this whirling dance. There were two performers. Seemed right, since the audience was also just two. But it was interesting to see how it worked, and one of them explained the dance and ritual ahead of time so we could understand a bit. Close to the Bedesten, I went to the Belediye Pazari, a large covered market. I also saw the Haydarpasha mosque from the outside. Just realized it is an art museum inside now.
After all the visiting I saw down and had a pide, a Turkish pizza with mincemeat. From there I walked back across the Green Line, handing my passport over to enter back into the Greek (southern) Cyprus. I made it back to the Byzantine Art Museum, which was covered in religious icons. No pictures were allowed, but
they all looked the same after the first 100. They also had some mosaics that had been stolen years ago and sold on the black market. The guy who had them was caught in Germany, and the pieces were returned to Cyprus and are now displayed in here. On my walk back towards the way to the new city, I followed the Venetian walls around and came to an outside market, where I bought cherries and peaches for only 1 euro. So cheap. After a quick chat in the air conditioned info office, I walked back to my room, searching for a small shop to buy yogurt for tomorrow’s breakfast. Mission accomplished. So tired – the heat is just exhausting. I thought I would have the fruit and a mango frappaccino for my dinner tonight, but there's no way I'm going back outside. So fruit it is.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0444s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb