Day 5 in Cyprus: Limassol and Akrotiri
On my last morning in Cyprus, I made a quick walking tour of Limassol. The city has a relatively new cathedral dedicated to Agia Napa as well as a very blocky medieval castle, but its most appealing attraction is its long, palm-lined waterfront. Even quite early in the morning, people were walking and jogging beneath the palm trees, and elderly men sat on the pier with fishing lines drooping into the water. Since the waterfront forms a gentle convex curve, one can view the new high-rise buildings of Limassol and the hills behind the city by walking out on one of the jetties.
After wandering around
for a while, I drove the car down to the Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the
Cats in Akrotiri. This monastery is one of the oldest in Cyprus, having been founded
in 325 CE. Legend has it that Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the
Great, once visited the area and found it infested by snakes, who along with
droughts drove away the local populace. The saint ordered a boatload of cats to
be brought over, and the area has been free of snakes ever since. Instead of serpents,
of course, the monastery now has to deal with a whole legion of felines, who
appear to be very well fed and do not fear humans. Depending on the time of the
day, they can be found basking in the sunlight on the hoods of visitors’ cars
or lying in their shadows.
I did not spend much
time at the monastery, which did not appear to have any very interesting
artwork, and reparked the car a little closer to the salt lake. The Salt Lake
of Limassol, located entirely within Akrotiri, is the largest salt lake in
Cyprus and in the winter months it becomes home to thousands of greater
flamingos. The lake itself is not particularly scenic, but it offers some nice
views of the hills. I was not sure if I could drive all the way around it, as
the pave road became a dirt path a few hundred metres after the monastery, so I
turned the car around and returned the same way I had come.
My last major stop of
the day before returning my car in Larnaca and flying home was Choirokoitia, a
neolithic village dated to around 7,000 BCE. The circular foundations of the
village’s circular huts were excavated in the 1930s, and the present site
houses several reconstructed houses showing what the village would have looked
like. After Choirokoitia, I only stopped in Kiti to eat lunch and take a look
inside the Church of the Virgin Mary Angeloktisti, which I had not been able to
enter on New Year’s Day. I also refuelled in Kiti, as I figured it would be
cheaper than buying petrol closer to the airport.
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