Wednesday 15 March - Lemithou

Another really full and interesting day. With the extra blanket I had requested and the central heating put on I was lovely and warm in bed and slept well. The sky was less cloudy when we woke up this morning and there was a promise of sunshine. We made our first stop at the  Monastery of Kykkos. The Monastery was the most extreme example of indulgence I have ever seen. It oozed indulgence, from the first entrance porch with its golden Mosaics to the endless corridors of elaborate frescoes and more Mosaics.  All of them depicting scenes from both testaments of the Bible.  Everyone looked so miserable,  why did they never smile. Actually I think I might have got some way to answering that question, but I need to do a lot more reading and research. I'll come back to that in a minute.
The Monastery Museum was much more interesting.  All the items in one room had ecclesiastical connections and I did get a bit glazed over at the number of crosses, and other religious paraphenalia.  I was intrigued by the beauty of the wood carvings. An excellent example was the Cross of the Mavri  (or Black Woman), made in 1710 and the work of several monks. The central cross is made up of six individual plaques depicting biblical scenes, exquisitely carved, figures no more than a few millimetres high. It is set in a silver frame decorated with tiny pearls, turquoise, stones and glass beads in an Ottoman style. I have rarely seen an item of such intricacy and beauty. There was also some amazing pieces of needlework from the 18th and 19th centuries. All the exhibits were expertly displayed with good lighting and I could make out the tiniest and most delicate stitches. Two particular pieces, by named embroideresses, were ruched and in relief.
At first I found myself annoyed that all this beautiful work had been done in the name of religious devotion. What a waste of effort. Then I questioned my personal prejudice. Did it matter what the motive and incentive had been when the end product was so glorious. Beautiful paintings and other works of art have been the result of anger, of depression, of frustration. The items I had seen had impressed me and given me great pleasure because of the skill of the creator. The motives of the creator had not been a factor in my enjoyment.
The other room in the Museum was equally impressive. It contained non-religious items, but presumably ones which had come into the keeping of the church, or maybe donated by benefactors.  There were some beautifully preserved artifacts from the 4th and 5th centuries BC, in much better condition than I have ever seen before. I particularly liked a small rudimentary clay statuette of a crouching boy, with obviously African features. We were at the Monastery for well over two hours and could easily have spent much longer.
Leaving Kykkos we decided to head off straight north and see if we could do a loop to get to the Marathasa Valley and the painted churches for which the region is so famous. At first the road was the series of hairpin bends which seem to be the norm in this part of Cyprus, then they evened out and we could see more of the landscape, rolling hills spread into distant mountains, and drove through endless hillsides which seemed to be terraced and with just pine trees growing on them. At first it seemed odd that such effort would have gone into terracing the hillsides, and no attempt to cultivate them. We could only think that as we were in or close to the buffer zone it would be pointless planting crops or productive trees as no-one was allowed to live there. We saw no-one, we passed maybe two trucks, transporting goods. We saw signs warning us not to turn off the road as any side tracks led into Northern Cyprus, 'the occupied zone'.
Heading back South we sought out a number of villages with Byzantine churches, and their painted frescoes. Ten churches have been given UNESCO World Heritage status, but there are also many others, some tucked away in villages and others isolated in the countryside. The Marathasa Valley is also famous for the abundance of cherry and apple trees, but unfortunately we are too early for the blossom. The churches were all built originally in the Byzantine period, before the 12thC. Many have been added to over future centuries. The paintings are often inscribed with the name of the painter and the date. They can also be dated according to the style of the painting, explaing my earlier remark about how miserable everyone looks. The older paintings tend to be more severe and stylised, and the later ones more relaxed. I had fortuitously downloaded a complete book, The Painted Churches of Cyprus by Andreas and Judith Stylianou as a PDF, complete with coloured photographs. It is quite dated and out of print now, but remains the authoritative academic text. It gives te background to all the churches and details the paintings with historical and researched information. The buildings themselves are all unique, the Byzantine style varing with each construction.
We ended up in the village of Pedoulas, where we had a nice meal in a pleasant taverna and I struck up a relationship with the woman running it. All my useful Greek vocabulary flooded back and we talked about the crochet work she was doing, and I told her about some of the things I had done. We talked about our children and grandchildren.
We Skyped the children and wished Freya a Happy Birthday. It has been a good day.