01 January 2013

Xmas in Cyprus

To see the photos from our Christmas in Cyprus, follow this link: Cyprus 2012



There are captions for the photos, but they don't show up in the slideshow.  However, if you look at them one by one you can see the captions.  Annoying, but I didn't see any settings that would let me change that.

Also, participate in the poll to the side!!

xoxo- Christine


Christmas in Cyprus by Randall D. Ball

                It was a trade-off.  Flying at night meant that Anastasia and Talula could sleep most of the way, certainly a blessing when traveling with young children.  However, our flight from Abu Dhabi to Larnaca, Cyprus, arrived at 3:30 in the morning.  An hour later, we were packed—very packed—into the rental car, the girls were sleeping again in the backseat, and Christine and I had quite a wait before our evening’s hotel would allow us to check in.  Fortunately, the hotel in Agia Napa provided us with breakfast while housekeeping hurriedly prepared a room for an early check-in.

                First, however, we had to find the hotel.  The GPS was virtually useless in Cyprus, and what little information I had on the hotel suggested it was located near Nissi Beach in Agia Napa on the Mediterranean island’s eastern coast.  One man’s directions led us around the old town, through narrow streets of red brick that meandered around various closed-for-the-season nightclubs and cafes.  A second person’s directions proved more successful, although “Turn left at the Toga Toga Strip Club” does sound off warning bells in my head.  The hotel was nice, though—a “holiday village” of beach villas spaced around several pools.  Too bad it was winter.  But winter also meant that we often had the tourist sites all to ourselves.

                We spent several days in Agia Napa, about the only time we saw rain, or really felt all that cold.  We walked along the waterfront by our hotel between showers;  the girls loved climbing on the rocks, and they both became enthralled—obsessed, actually—with snails.  Talula would pick up a snail and ask, “Is it home?”  If not, the shell would go into her pocket.  Besides all the fascinating snails, the other fauna that we frequently encountered were cats.  There are many cats—mostly friendly, relatively tame—in Cyprus, and the girls made it a point to pet every feline on the island.

                We also explored Cape Gkreko, a beautiful headland with limestone cliffs overlooking the sea on the easternmost tip of the country, and the Monastery of Agia Napa, an historic structure from the 1500s.  On the other side of Nissi Beach, on a particularly windy and wet day, we dared to venture out to Agia Thekla, a tiny chapel at the top of a small rise on the coast.  The chapel itself is not as interesting as what lies at the base of the hill—a much older church in a rock cave.  This grotto is where the girls started talking about dragons.  Dragons and bears.

                One rainy day, we visited the aquarium in Paralimni, north of Agia Napa.  Of course, Anastasia and Talula liked the fish (although, admittedly, it seemed that much of the marine life could have been found for free at a decent pet store), the crocodiles, and the penguins, but the highlight was the very active octopus.  With his tentacles stretching out and wrapping around everything in his tank, the creature glided round and round, changing colors as he moved.  We could have watched him all day, but Talula was a bit frightened of him.

                Our next stop was the quaint hillside village of Tochni, where we stayed—as the only visitors—at a private guest house.  It was a picturesque scene:  narrow roads and paths winding down to the valley, a church at the bottom and in the middle of town, the stone houses with their little gardens and terraces.  And for Anastasia and Talula, plenty of cats and snails.  As pleasant as the scenery was, it would be the people, however, who would make Tochni my favorite place in Cyprus.  They were very friendly, warm and welcoming, and since it was the off-season, we were almost the only tourists in town.  Everyone knew us by the second day.  At a coffee shop one night where we ate dinner, the owner’s wife encouraged Anastasia to eat by playing the old airplane game:  pretending the spoon was an airplane and feeding Anastasia herself.  The food in the village was very good:  home-cooked “comfort” dishes, served by amiable waitresses and surrounded by gregarious locals.

                We made a few day trips from Tochni:  to the capital Nicosia (the final day of rain before the island brightened and the sun gently warmed us), to the Neolithic settlement in Choirokoitia, and to the scenic monastery of Agios Georgios Alamanos.  One bright, sunny afternoon, we enjoyed delicious, fresh local fish at a restaurant on the coast between Larnaca and Limassol while the girls jumped on a trampoline next to us.  Late one afternoon on another day, we took a side trip into the mountains, but the winding road and constant switchbacks gave Christine a nasty headache.  That evening, Christmas Eve, I took the girls out for a village stroll to give Christine a brief respite.  Above the church, on the hillside, was a hulking, dark tree, and a few lights shone through it, almost like glowing orange eyes.  I convinced Anastasia and Talula that it was a dragon, much to their excitement.  Dragon talk continued for the next few days.  They also played with real animals:  namely, more snails and cats. 

                Christmas Day was a busy one.  We awoke early to the bells of the church in our little village of Tochni, and—because it was Christmas and because it sounded interesting and because several locals had invited us—we went to services at that Greek Orthodox church.  Locals told us that people start arriving at 6:30 in the morning, but that actual services didn’t start until around 8:00 and would last until about 10:00.  The old folks, we were told, arrived early to get a seat.  We arrived around 7:15, and there was already something happening.  Two men took turns reciting and chanting—in Greek, of course, and would do so for the next three hours as more and more people arrived, kissed wooden pictures of Christ and Mary, and made the sign of the cross.  Occasionally, the Orthodox priest would come out from behind the Iconostasis and chant something while swinging his incense around.  It felt much more like a Catholic mass, of course, than a Protestant service.  Most of the congregation wore black (the girls stood out a bit with their matching red Christmas dresses, but that was okay;  we were welcomed, and the coffee shop woman from the previous night’s dinner sat next to me and chatted, occasionally holding one of the girls).  Some people wore noteworthy outfits, however, like short, tight black leather skirts or dark, leopard-print dresses.  One older woman arrived sporting huge 80s hair with blonde highlights;  then her two daughters walked in behind her, showing off the same humorous hair style.  It made for some entertaining people watching, even if we couldn’t understand a word of the liturgy (except for “Christos”).

                After the service (we left about fifteen minutes early, just missing Eucharist), we said goodbye to Tochni and drove around, rather than through, Limassol to the Akrotiri Peninsula, home of many strawberry fields, a salt lake with flamingoes, and—appropriate on Christmas Day—the monastery of St. Nicholas of the Cats.  Apparently, Constantine’s mother visited Cyprus and shipped the cats to the island to deal with all the snakes.  Monks fed the cats, and now Cyprus has more than its fair share of feline companions.  I never saw any snakes either.

                We found one roadside strawberry vendor open on Christmas, so we made our purchase and then sought out a pleasant spot for our “strawberry picnic,” as we told Talula, who especially loves fruit.  Even now when she sees a strawberry, she calls it a “picnic.”  We found the ideal spot—right on the beach near Kourion—for our Christmas Day strawberry beach picnic party.  After soaking in the warmth of the sun and enjoying the strawberries, we worked our way up the coast to Petra tou Romiou, three large limestone rocks just off the coast that are supposedly the birthplace of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.  Then we drove onward to the west coast resort city of Pafos.  As I said, Christmas was a busy day.

                Our hotel was just a block from the waterfront, where we walked along the shoreline to the marina.  The weather was warm, perfect for dining outside along the harbor at one of the many seafood restaurants there.  We had our fill of calamari, octopus, prawns, fish, olives, halloumi cheese, pork and chicken kebabs, pita bread, Greek salad, hummus, and oranges—juicy, fresh, local oranges—for dessert.  Talula really loved those oranges;  the girl could eat three or four in one sitting.  This was typical culinary fare throughout Cyprus.

                We explored the medieval fort in the harbor, and we worked our way all around the archaeological park of Kato Pafos, the Roman ruins of the old city and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Highlights of Kato Pafos were the House of Dionysos with its grand mosaics, the Roman Odeon (a small theater where Anastasia had fun jumping from stone seat to seat—until she had a bad fall, that is), and the archways of the ancient castle ruins of Saranda Kolones.  There was a lighthouse nearby, which Anastasia pointed at excitedly and remarked, “Like Pete’s Dragon!”

                On the way out of Pafos, we drove through the Diarizos Valley leading up to the Troodos Mountains (we avoided much of the mountains, however, to spare anyone car sickness).  This green valley is dotted with medieval villages, with sheep farms, and with unusual prickly bushes mixed in with the many olive trees.  We stopped for a while to let the girls stretch their legs (and chase each other with sticks) while we admired the valley with the little creek (officially, the Diarizos River, but it was more of a creek) meandering below.  Then we drove to Palaipafos in the small town of Kouklia, home of the Temple of Aphrodite but also site of a much older (Bronze Age) civilization.  Kouklia is on a hilltop with a terrific view of the Mediterranean Sea.  We enjoyed lunch in the village, where the restaurant owner, upon hearing that we were American, exclaimed, “America makes two things I love…Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Marlboro cigarettes!”

                “And both can kill you,” Christine said, but I don’t think he heard her.

                From Kouklia we drove a short way to ancient Kourion to check out yet more Roman ruins.  The girls loved it, however.  They enjoy climbing on rocks and running around.  The Roman theater there is large and impressive, although the way it’s situated, on a hill with the audience facing the sea, I can imagine there was a bit of a distraction.

                We returned to Tochni for one night, and the next morning we relaxed on the terrace of the guest house.  Christine and I read while the girls played with lemons from a tree in the courtyard.  They created a game called “Lemon Ball” that was something of a disorganized mixture of volleyball and soccer.  When they were done, the whole courtyard smelled like lemonade.  They must have had fun.

                That afternoon, we visited the camel park in Mazotos, where Anastasia and I rode a camel (our guide was amused that we had come from Abu Dhabi to ride camels) and Talula rode a pony.  Then we fed the animals (until a donkey bit Talula, that is) and saw ostriches, donkeys, porcupines, a wallaby, and a few other critters.  Then we drove onward to Larnaca, where I started to catalog the girls’ injuries from our two-week holiday.  Anastasia had a nasty bruise on her forehead from where she fell while jumping down the stadium seats in Kato Pafos, plus she had a cut on her hand where she fell down on some rocks in Palaipafos, and she had random bruises from other various falls.  Talula looked about ready to lose a fingernail (from where her sister smashed her finger in a door a week ago), plus the donkey bite (not really noticeable), a scratch on her foot from something, and similar bruises to her sister’s, also from various falls.  (In the morning, we’d have to add a few insect bites to the list, since something fed on Talula and me during the night).

                The next morning, our final dull day in Cyprus, we walked along another salt lake, close to our hotel in Larnaca, where we encountered many more flamingoes.  Christine asked Anastasia to count them all;  Anastasia stopped at sixteen.  She was probably off by a few thousand.  We also met several friendly locals who were walking their dogs along the lake.  It made for a pleasant day, a satisfying conclusion to our trip before the early-morning return flight to Abu Dhabi.

No comments: