Troodos Mountains
Church in the Troodos Mountains
March 14, 2004
We headed out to go to Nicosia via the mountains, getting lost on the way. We followed
a gravel road that turned into dirt and loose gravel as we slid down the mountain's
slight grade, but soon turned around. We drove through an abandoned town with stones
that said 1953 on them, but they had all since been lost in time. We continued until
we found a stream, which I wanted to jump, but the girls convinced me to reconsider
and we turned around... for the best.
Our first stop in the mountains was Aphrodite’s temple near Pafos, where we saw
muflons in the street, "threatening" to attack us.
We took another road that turned into a grass field or prairie, so we again turned
around to find a little village nestled in the hills. It was beautiful; the houses
close together and the streets made of cobblestone. We found a church and winery,
where there was a party going on so we were very politely turned away, but we soon
returned to get some wine. They took us into there cellars and said they studied
in Virginia, which was obvious from their great English. Their father was also there
and they sold us 2 bottles of wine and gave us directions to a nearby monastery,
which we walked to.
We got back to the car and drove through this tiny town and it’s very narrow streets
to get to another monastery. The signs of this monastery were in Greek, with one
in English “no tourists allowed”, so we asked a person before entering and he was
willing to let us in, I think because we respected it and put our cameras away.
The 1300’s monastery was dark, silent, and spine-tingling more than holy. The icons
and paintings were unlike anything I’ve seen before: very colorful and bright, yet
so much contrast with the lighting.
After the monastery we found Mt. Olympus nearby... it was snow covered and we watched
the sun set over its shoulder. It was full of snow and many trees, but on the top
was a military radar station, taking away much of the romance of the mountain.
We continued on to Lefkosia
Church in the Troodos Mountains
Church in the Troodos Mountains