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Published: April 29th 2009
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Baz on the beach
Just outside our hotel A week before visiting Reykjavik, we decided to get some sun time in and hop over the Med to Cyprus for the Easter long weekend.
Cyprus was pretty cool, “half” Greek “half” Turkish, the world only actually recognises the Greek occupation of Cyprus. The Turkish occupation is considered illegal by the UN and they still have military patrolled boarders between the two sides.
There’s quite a rich Greek history in Cyprus as the goddess Aphrodite is supposed to have been born on these shores in a sea shell. There are ancient temples to her and sacred spots, including a grotto where she supposedly bathed with Adonis. There are also tales of Richard the Lionheart and the Knights Templars in later years, but that doesn’t seem to live on today.
We stayed in the party town of Ayia Napa - we had no idea that it was a party town when we booked, we just thought the hotel was lovely. Luckily, the season had only really just started, so the place wasn’t filled with party people and we were given free drinks at pretty much every bar we went to! We really did enjoy the night life there as
A bit Windy!
But at least it was warm. it felt like we were part of a select few who were invited to the party.
We’d hired a car in Cyprus so we could check out the whole island.
We were flying in and out of Larnaca so we decided to leave that till last. We didn’t arrive till Friday afternoon, so that pretty much only gave us enough time to check out our local area and head out for our first party night. Our first proper day there, we drove along the south coast along the Aphrodite trail and made our way through Limassol and over to Paphos. Paphos is a World Heritage site and is home to the “Tombs of the Kings”, which is an ancient burial ground. It’s quite amazing actually. Having been to Egypt you can see the similarity in the tombs in Paphos and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. They are no where near as elaborate but they are underground crypts that were carved into the rock, over looking the ocean. They haven’t been as well preserved, the Egyptian tombs were kept in the dark and preserved by sand, whereas the ones in Paphos have been quite exposed, but
Paphos
Baz at the Tombs of the Kings they are still amazing to visit - just the shear number of tombs too is pretty mind boggling.
On Easter Sunday we headed up to Nicosia, which is where the Greek/Turkish boarder is. It’s one of the few cities left in the world to be split. From the information that was displayed at the boarder it seemed that after the Ottoman Empire fell, Cyprus was given to the Brits to look after. The next bit is a bit hazy but essentially the Brits were going to give Cyprus it’s independence with the Greeks having some sort of say as they had the majority population, but the Turks weren’t ok with that. Even though the Turks weren’t interested in Cyprus after the Ottoman Empire, they suddenly decided that it really wasn’t cool for the Greeks to get it so they shipped a heap of soldiers over, set up camp and here they stayed. It was weird walking through Nicosia, the centre is really alive and you’d never guess that there was ever any kind of conflict. But as you move away from the centre towards the Turkish side, the buildings become more and more run down until it’s almost a
Paphos
CK walking through a tomb door ghost town. It was a little unnerving to be honest. There are signs at some points along the walls telling you that anyone caught taking photos will be arrested…so of course Baz took that as his cue to audition for Japanese Tourist of the year.
We ended up driving over the boarder in Nicosia to the Turkish side and made our way up to the little fishing village of Kyrenia, which actually is so well marketed that it’s a tourist haven. The people at the boarders were really nice. It was strange to think that there was any kind of animosity between the sides as we watched Greeks and Turkish chat happily to each other - we even watched Greek and Turkish military chatting away to each other along the wall. Makes you wonder why there’s a wall at all.
We drove through the Turkish side through the little town of Famagusto back to Ayia Napa that evening for our last crack at the town with free booze ;D
We spent our last day in Larnaca, which has less to see than anywhere else that we visited in Cyprus. It’s big claim to fame is the mosque
Paphos
Some of the tombs that was erected for Mohamad’s Aunty. Apparently she fell from a donkey or horse or something during a conflict and died. So they erected a mosque in her honour. It’s a beautiful mosque on the edge of the salt lake. Unfortunately it was closed when we visited. Although more disappointing was the fact that the salt lake was completely dried up when we visited, so although it was cool to walk on salt crusts, it would have been cooler to see all the wildlife that flock to the salt lakes when they’re full.
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