Friday was a busy day. I woke up early and got on the bus and rode for a long time. Our first stop was The Kolossi Castle. The "Castle" is technically a fortress built in the 16th century under the Byzantine Empire. It's claim to fame is that its where Richard the Lionheart married Princess Berengaria, and crowned her Queen of England in 1191. Queen Berengaria lived in Cyprus her whole life, and was still ruled as queen even though she never stepped foot in England. We were only given 20 minutes to fully explore the castle, but that was just enough time to run up what felt like 7 flights of tiny spiral staircases to make it to the top.
Stop two was the Kourion Baths and complex and Amphitheater. The baths and complex were once home to a rich family, and is known for the mosaics that decorate the floor.
Keep in mind that these mosaics date back around late 4th century to early 5th century. I like to relate back to my "what is gorgeous" question from before, and say for some things beauty really is timeless. Honestly, there was more of a history lesson that went along with this, but I got a little distracted. This was my first glimpse of the beach.
If you look real close there is a teeny tiny horse ranch around center left
Right beside the bath house/ complex was the amphitheater. It kinda reminded me of UT's amphitheater except, much bigger. This amphitheater was built in the 2nd century, and in the 3rd century the Romans gave it a face lift. There's even a lion's den in it.
The amphitheater is still used today for traditional cultural events, and seats 2000 people. This thing
is huge, and just to get a good idea of how big it is check it on Google Earth.
To get to our next destination in Pafos we drove over some huge, curvy mountain sides, and got to Petra tou Romiou also known as Aphrodite's Rock. It's famous for being the birthplace of Aphrodite.
There's really not much to do here, but take pictures, but this is my new favorite place on Earth.
See look how blue the water is!! After a quick picture opt everybody got back on the bus and headed to Paphos for a two-hour lunch break. (Tia the following part is for you,) While in Paphos we ran into a group of party promoters, nether of them were Cypriot, but one was British who had a copy of the David Beckham tattoo, and then one was Romanian. We then quickly made a tour of the House of Dionysus, the greek good of wine. It was full of more mosaics, and over run by feral cats. By this time everybody was all sweaty and tired, so loaded up the bus one last time drove over more curvy roads and mountain sides, and made it back to our hotel in Limassol.
Saturday was, to use an adjective invented by Jenelle "tantastic!" In the morning we went to beach. The water was crystal blue and none of that gross seaweed stuff floating around in it. That day it was unnaturally windy, so there was sand flying everywhere. It was all up in everyone's faces, ears and eyes. This wasn't pretty sand either it was clumpy and hard. After lunch, I decided enough of the sand and headed to hang out by the pool with my one of my lovely roomies Lindsey, and we stayed for pretty much the rest of the day. This is when I got the time zones confused and just wanted to call my Mom to say hey, but I didn't realize it was 5:30 in the morning there.
That night a group of us headed out to a place called Rio Bravo, which we were told by the hotel was the best Mexican food place around. On the way the cab ride there I witnessed a kitten running out in the road and being run over, it made me really sad. After arriving at Rio Bravo we were the only people at the restaurant, but yet we were fussed at for not having a reservation. This Cypriot "mexican" restaurant was decorated more like an old western saloon, and decorated with American license plates, mostly from New York, and one was from Rutherford County Tennessee. They also played country music too. The menu ideas was all the right mexican stuff though.
Sunday we left Limassol, and one the way back we made a quick stop to Lefkara, a village known for it's lace. There were so many lace and silver shops I really regret not buying anything for myself. I'm still waiting for my special souvenir to pop out and I'll be like ohhh, I need that.
This was the picture perfect village. I was so fascinated by it. All of the houses were decorated with bright colors and adorned with flowers. It reminded me a lot of my old Barbie doll house. Most houses had doors wide open, and sometimes we would walk over to see a garden, and find that we wandered into somebody's backyard. The school house didn't even really look like a school. It wasn't made of brick and had about ten beautiful rose bushes growing out in the front lawn. If there was no play ground beside I wouldn't have even been able to tell it was a school.
Monday was "Flood Day" a national holiday in Cyprus celebrating the 50 days after Easter, the descent of the Holy Spirit into the Apostles, and Noah's arc and the great flood. Traditionally Cypriots head to the beaches, but considering it was Flood Day the sky was cloudy and it even rained! It's not like I was heading anywhere anyways, everything, I mean everything was closed even the 24/7 kiosks. I took this time to catch-up on my summer reading and finished Water For Elephants.
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