Monday 20 March - Lefkosia

We went to Northern Cyprus today. The border crossing was easy to negotiate, although not too easy to find. I expected my passport to be stamped here, but nothing. So I still haven't got anything at all to show I've been to Cyprus. We went to Kyrenia, a large sprawling port, much bigger than I expected. It is very nice with the old carob warehouses lining the harbour front, but I can't say it was so much better than other Greek ports we have visited, for example Chania, in Crete. It was very busy, in the summer it must be impossibly crowded. The traffic was terrible, gridlocked on many occasions and this is the down season. We spent some time going round the Castle which was impressive. I particularly enjoyed the small Museums within the Castle complex. I found The Shipwreck Museum to be the most interesting and informative. The labelling and the explanations were very good, better and more precise than those in the Cyprus Museum.
Our next stop was at St Hilarion Castle, in the Kyrenia Mountains and this was even more impressive. Literally carved out of the mountain side, going up and up. It is impossible to describe the first impressions as you approach it from below, up a long winding road. It was a beautiful day, clear blue sky, and it loomed and floated above us, segments of the walls and towers spread out over a vast area at the sides and top of the mountain. All that remains now is mostly walls, ramparts and staircases, but it was possible to see how large and encompassing the Castle must have been. We climbed up and up, until at last I was defeated, just a few metres from the top, by narrow stone steps cut out of the rock. I was OK going up but concerned about how I would get down.
Our final stop was at Bellapais Abbey. We has spent longer than we had anticipated at both of the two previous sites so we decided we would not have time to travel across the island to Famagusta, who knows, maybe another time. Bellapais is a pretty village where Lawrence Durrell once lived. We arrived at the Abbey at the same time as a large tour bus. They went through the entry gate slightly ahead of us and all went into the Church, so we thought we would explore the cloisters and outer buildings first. The refectory is intact and sometimes used for musical performances, a grand piano was on a raised dais at one end. We climbed to an upper level, with a view out over Kyrenia Harbour, and loitered a while in the pleasant cloisters. We then proceeded back to the church, thinking that we had given the tour group sufficient time to clear, to find the gates we had come through were locked. We decided to take the exit gate and then re-enter, showing our tickets, so that we could get into the Abbey church. However every where was completely locked up, the ticket office closed and chains on the gates. It was only 15.30 and it is supposed to be open until 17.00.
We drove back into South Nicosia,leaving the car and walking into the town for a meal. We went to the Greek taverna where we had been on our first night and had a very 'greek' Greek meal. My gigantes were particularly good.

Impressions of North Cyprus:
We had heard that going to North Cyprus was like stepping back 50 years in time. That is not at all our impression, based on the small area we have visited, which has been mostly urban. The road system was good, there were smart shops, new cars,clean and tidy housing. We didn't see any fast food chains such as KFC or MacDonalds, but I can't see that's exactly deprivation. There were loads of Kebab and Souvla outlets selling what looked like Gyros, not that different to a MacDonalds Burger and a lot healthier. We saw some women wearing headscarves, but I didn't see a single burka or veil. Most young girls were fashionably torn and faded jeans or skimpy skirts. We went to visit a mosque and John was wearing shorts so he stood outside, but a man by the door ushered him in, saying it didn't matter.

Sunday 19 March - Lefkosia

Our first experience of Airbnb, and it is very good. We are staying with a wonderful couple, he is Cypriot but educated in the U.K. and she is British, who live in his old family house. If I say that it is in the same street as several embassies it gives you some idea of the size of it. It is called the Mansion House, which is not an exaggeration. Evidently his grandfather was entrepreneurial, made quite a lot of money and bought the house. There are eight guest rooms, ours is massive, with two balconies. The central foyer with a majestic staircase going up from it is very, very large. A centre piece is an also very large cage standing on an also large table, which is an optional refuge for a Macaw, who spends most of his time on top of the cage or on a perch. There are also three dogs and about twenty cats, most of which seem to be stray or rescued. It has the feel of a large hostel, with kitchen and a dining room open for everyone to use. It is a 'help yourself to anything you can see' way of living, put dirty stuff in the dish-washer and if it's full put it on.
An excellent example of this is how Anthony, the owner, opened up his private room yesterday, not that the door is ever shut anyway, to anyone who wanted to watch the Rugby internationals. So we arrived yesterday, after visiting a couple more Byzantine churches en route, at Platanistasa and Paliachori. They were in fact two of the finest we have seen and we were lucky on both occasions that we gained entry to them. The first church at Paliachori was locked when we arrived and a notice board informed us that it is only open Monday to Friday. We walked around the outside and were about to get back in the car when a man arrived with an impressively large key. He lived nearby and had seen us there, so he came to let us in. He was an excellent guide, with very good English who explained the finer details of the paintings to us. They were exceptionally good, and many quite unlike any we have seen previously. He told us that if we wanted to gain entry to the Monastery at Planatistasa we would have to ask for the key from a cafe in the village. We drove through the village, were unsuccessful in finding either the village centre or an open cafe, so we decided to give it a miss and continued our journey. We were way past the village when John spotted a sign to the Monastery on a side road. We wound our way up, not expecting it to be open, but thought we could look at the exterior. When we got there the door was wide open and a priest was sitting outside having a smoke. He opened up all the inner doors for us and gave us a strong torch so that we could see the internal paintings. Once again these paintings were very different. I want to do a bit of research about the original external ones if I can. They were very brutal, people being tortured and suffering, unlike some of the sanitised scenes we had seen in other churches. As we left the priest was having his packed lunch at one of the trestle tables outside. We told him how much we had enjoyed the visit, in our rudimentary Greek, he didn't have any English. He asked if we would like to have a coffee with him but unfortunately we needed to continue on our way.
Once checked into The Mansion House we walked into the old town of Lefkosia and had a meal at a Greek restaurant, which was very good. Then back to watch the Rugby and afterwards sit round the dining table with Anthony and Gilly and two other guests, drinking wine. It was 23.30 before we finally went to bed, quite different to our usual practice.
So today we began with a visit to The Cyprus Museum. There were some excellent exhibits, although the labelling wasn't always good. This trip has been surprising in that I have had to re-assess many of my pre-formed ideas. Another example of this is that I really enjoyed the Museum. I am usually quite cynical about Archaeology Musems. How many more pieces of Roman column or Hellenist pottery do I need to see? There were some beautiful pieces from the Bronze Ages, pottery, jewellery, tools and household items.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around the Old Town, within the Venetian Walls. As it was Sunday many places were closed up. We went through the crossing to the North side and even less seemed open there, although there were lots of people everywhere, taking their Sunday strolls. We ate at a street side cafe at about 15.30, but the waiter was packing up around us as we were eating and we had hardly any choice of food as he was closing down. We were back to the B & B by 17.30 and bed earlier than last night.