Sight-seeing

Today we got to go do some local sight-seeing.

This church in a village outside of Larnaca shows an interesting combination of Roman, Byzantine, and modern types of architecture-- a good metaphor for the island of Cyprus. The interesting thing, though, was in the courtyard:

This is an olive oil press that dates back to... I dunno, a long time ago. An intact version would look like this: http://www.ibizaholidays.com/Nature/Images%20Nature%20Ibiza/olive-press-ibiza.jpg

The town was interesting because it was obviously very old, but it was still a bustling village:
Here you can see old, old mud bricks decaying on the edge of a guy's house, with brand-new buildings across the street. This juxtoposition defines Cyprus.

This is a tomb from the Hellenic Period (about 300BC) that's outside the town of Pyla.


It was kind of eerie, but kind of cool to stand in a 2500 year old crypt. Sort of a big deal.

This is a Medieval tower constructed by the Lusignan dynasty during Frankish Crusader rule of the island (1191-1489). This was exciting, as this totally fits in my own area of interest.

From the top of the tower one could get a great view of the precarious reality of modern Cyprus; the top half is controlled by a Turkish-Cypriot regime after the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974. The island is divided by the "green zone", an uninhabited strip of land that is patrolled by the U.N. The town of Pyla, where the tower and the tomb are, is located within the green zone and is still inhabited by both Turks and Greek-Cypriot. This situation is a big deal and it dominates the politics of the island and the E.U. debate concerning Turkey.

Feel free to drop comments and such. Until next time!