Christmas in Cyprus

As Christmas isn’t really celebrated in KSA and we were in need of some holiday cheer (and some ocean, some hiking, and some driving on the wrong side of the road) we booked a trip over to Cyprus for the holiday week.  It was great to see the ocean again!  We enjoyed our selves quite a bit. Cyprus has some really good wine and some really tasty food (I think we had pork with almost every meal!).

After a few days in Larnica, we took a road trip up to the capital, Nicosia. It’s here that the Green Line separates the city and island between the Turks in the north and the Greek Cypriots in the south.  We had lunch on the Turkish side and looked at some of the old buildings in that part of the city.  In both Larnica and Nicosia there is a nice city walk highlighted by the tiles in the ground leading your walk to some of the cultural and significant sights.

On the way to Pafos, we rescued a sweet puppy stuck on the highway.  We hope she’s doing well and are sure she found a great family for Christmas.  Pafos is home to a World Heritage site that dates from Roman times and saw it’s heyday in the 3rd and 4th century.  Known for incredible mosaic floors, the site also has some remaining columns and a fort.

For the last part of the trip we headed up into the mountainous region that can get snow, though it was mostly dry while we were there.  We did a very nice hike going around Mt. Olympus – we mistakenly thought it was only 7km and we had to turn back when we realized that the full circumnavigation would be quite a bit further than that (or for the daylight we had left)!  Still, the quiet and peace of the wilderness was incredible.  We finished with a visit to Kykkos Monastery and the amazing mosaics the monks there have created.