Holiday in Cyprus (5): Northern Nicosia
June 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On the third day of the northern part of our Cyprus trip (Thursday), we drove to the capital which is just half an hour away. Known as Lefkosia in Greek and Lefkoşa in Turkish, the name given to the city by the English is Nicosia. Since the Turkish invasion of 1974, it has been the only divided capital in the world and this morning we visited the northern part which is smaller and less developed than the southern portion.
First stop was the Whirling Dervishes Museum located in a one-time monastery dating back to the 17th century. Really the museum is an explanation of the Sufi mysticism belief system behind the dance which is designed to induce a trance-like state. I saw a performance of the dance itself by whirling dervishes in Aleppo during a trip to Syria in 2003, a couple of weeks before the terrible civil war broke out, and it is a mesmerising experience.
Strolling through the Old City Square with its Venetian Column, we made our second stop at the St Sophia Cathedral which in 1570 ceased to be a Catholic place of worship when the new island occupiers the Ottomans converted it into a mosque. Since the orientation of a mosque provides for worshippers to face the direction of Mecca, the carpet is laid diagonally to the floor plan of the original church.
Then came some shopping. Our guide asked: “Is there any special shop that you want us to go to?” One of the male members of our group quipped in reply: “The one that is closed.” But we visited a decent souvenir shop before looking around the Bedestan which is the covered bazaar housing establishments selling not just the usual clothes and foods but everything from old vinyl records to multiple versions of Turkish delight.
Finally we had a refreshment stop at a wonderful former caravanserai called Buyuk Han which dates back to 1572. Inside a beautiful courtyard, I had fresh lemonade and almond rolls. Before we left northern Nicosia, we went to observe a pedestrian border crossing into southern Nicosia, located on the Green Line, so called because – when the demarcation of the communities was agreed – a British official marked the line on a map with his green felt pen.
After three evenings with dinners in our hotel, this evening – our last in the north of Cyprus – we were taken into Kyrenia to have dinner by the harbour at the Chimera restaurant where we had lunch on Tuesday. For the third time in four days, a member of the combined British group of eight had a birthday, so we drank sparkling wine and ate a special cake to celebrate. Afterwards we chose to stay at the restaurant, sitting outside to view the England versus Belgium World Cup football match (we lost 0-1).
As family and friends will know, generally my enthusiasm for football is on a par with that for dentistry and my total knowledge of the sport could be fitted on the back of a postage stamp, but my fellow travellers were all both massively excited and hugely knowledgeable and I like to have new experiences on holiday, so I too spent the rest of the evening cheering on our lads into the next round of the competition.
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Holiday in Cyprus (4): Famagusta
June 27th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On the second day of the northern part of our Cyprus trip (Wednesday), we drove from Kyrenia all the way to Famagusta on the eastern coast of the island which took just under an hour and an half. Originally built by the Phoenicians, the city was totally enclosed by ramparts by the Venetians and these ramparts still survive today. Part of the city is a ghost town – a section once occupied by Greek Cypriots who fled their homes when the Turks invaded in 1974.
Our first visit was to what was originally St Nicholas Cathedral which was constructed between 1298-1312 and used for coronation purposes for the Lusignan kings of Jerusalem and Armenia. During the Ottoman reign, however, it was converted into a mosque – since 1954 the Lala Mustafa Pasa Mosque – and remains a mosque to this day. I have previously visited a place which was a great mosque and became a cathedral (La Mezquita in Córdoba) and a place which was a basilica which became an imperial mosque which became a museum (the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul), so I am used to religious changes in this part of the world.
After a stop at a well-known patisserie for coffee and cake, our next visit was to Othello’s Tower, so called because Famagusta was supposedly the setting for Shakespeare’s play (the name was given during the British occupation). This citadel was originally built in the 12th century during the Lusignan period to protect the harbour. It is thought that, when Leonardo da Vinci visited Cyprus in 1481, he advised the Venetians – who by then had taken over the island – on the design of the defences of Famagusta.
At this point, we left Famagusta and made the short drive to Salamis, the site of the greatest of Cyprus’s ancient cities. Founded more than 3,000 years ago by Mycean Greeks, it dominated the island until its near destruction by earthquakes in the 4th century AD. Most of what we see today is 4th century: the Roman theatre, the columned courtyard, the gymnasium, the 44-seat latrines, the frigidarium (cold rooms), the caldarium (hot water baths), the sudatorium (sweating rooms).
We walked around Salamis at the hottest time of the day at near to the hottest time of the year, so I was kitted out in sun hat, sun glasses and sun lotion. The expression “mad dogs and Englishmen” came to mind. Fortunately lunch was at an outside restaurant very close to the ruins overlooking the azure sea.
Our final visit of the day – again only a short drive – was to the site of the catacomb tomb of St Barnabas, a native of Salamis who evangelised Cyprus. Since 1756, it has been the Apostolos Varnavas Monastery and, since 1974, the monastery’s cells have become northern Cyprus’s main Archaeological Museum in which Bronze Age pottery items are the star exhibits.
For the third consecutive evening, dinner was at the hotel as part of the package and what we lacked in choice we enjoyed in quality. We all had the local fish and we all liked it.
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Holiday in Cyprus (3): Kyrenia
June 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On Tuesday, I was woken at 4.30 am by the broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer, a reminder that I was in north Cyprus and not south Cyprus. At 9 am, we met our guide for the northern part of our tour of the island: Sezain Patterson whose English was brilliant on account of spending years in Britain and marrying an Englishman. The four of us on the North and South Voyages Jules Verne tour were joined by four other Brits staying at another hotel and doing a VJV tour that only covers the north. This will be the arrangement for the first three days of our holiday.
Today we visited locations in and around Kyrenia (or Girne as it is called locally).
This city is set around and above a superb natural harbour. Founded by the Achaens after the Trojan War, its long and chequered past involves rules by the Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, Ottoman and British empires.
Our first visit was to St Hilarion Castle, located a short distance south-west of the city. Originally a a watch tower to warn against Arab raiders, following the taking of the island by Richard the Lionheart in 1191, the location was developed during the period of the crusades by the Frankish Lusignans and abandoned when the Venetians took the island in 1489. The highest point of the ruins is 732 metres and only reached by taking some 230 steps which are very tough and uneven (at least there are handrails).
Following such a climb, a homemade lemonade drink was welcome. Officially the currency of northern Cyprus is the Turkish lira, but euros and sterling are accepted too, which is just as well because I have only brought euros.
The second visit of the day was to Bellapais Abbey, located in a pretty little village just south of Kyrenia. The first monks here were the Augustinians who had to flee Jerusalem when Saladin occupied the holy city in 1187. When the Ottomans took over the island in 1571, the abbey was closed and the church ceased to be Catholic and became Orthodox. The church stopped operating when the Turks invaded in 1974.
The location is home to the best Gothic architecture on the island and highlights are the 14th century cloister and a magnificent refectory.
After these two visits, we drove into Kyrenia to have lunch sitting outside the Chimera restaurant – owned by the same family as our hotel – by the picturesque harbour side.
Our third and last visit of the day was to Kyrenia Castle. The earliest construction on the site could have been as far back as the 7th century BC, but major developments occurred under the Lusignans and the Venetians. Ironically, however, the local people surrendered without a fight to the Ottomans in 1570. During the British colonial period, the site was used as a prison and a police academy.
Inside the castle is the Shipwreck Museum which houses the world’s oldest ship complete with its ancient cargo of some 400 amphoras. The ship was sunk around 300 BC and salvaged in 1967. It reminded me of the “Mary Rose” (1545) in Portsmouth and the “Vasa” (1628) in Stockholm. Though the ship in Kyrenia is much smaller than the other two vessels, it is much, much older.
Dinner was again at the hotel where we are virtually the only guests and again a choice from a three-course menu with two options for each course. But this evening we started with complimentary welcome cocktails and one of our group celebrated a birthday and insisted on buying us another round of cocktails and wine with the meal. I went with the flow …
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Holiday in Cyprus (2): arrival
June 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On Monday, the flight from London to Larnaca was just over four hours and the time difference between Britain and Cyprus is two hours, so it took the best part of the day reaching the island. At Larnaca, I met the other members of the group. Since I was travelling alone, I was hoping for a group of decent size and variety, but I found that there were only three other members: a married couple from Suffolk and a single man from Leicester, all in their early 60s – each of them extremely well-travelled.
A laconic driver took us in a minivan from the south-east to the north-west of the island, passing through one of the seven border crossings between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. This is a strange island which can be disorientating to visitors since often a place has Greek, Turkish and English names. But both parts of the island drive on the left, so that at least is a familiar situation for British tourists.
Our accommodation during our time in the north is on the outskirts of the coastal town of Kyrenia and called the Omar Village Hotel. It is a family-owned establishment, rather basic with no tea & coffee making facilities and very poor WiFi in the rooms (the WiFi in the restaurant is a bit better). But you can drink the tap water and they have the same three-pin plugs as Britain.
Dinner was included in the tour and consisted of a set menu of three courses with a choice of just two dishes for each course. Drinks were extra and we toasted my 70th birthday with local Efes beer. Down in the town, there were some fireworks which might have been for my birthday but could have been to celebrate the presidential election in Turkey at the weekend.
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Holiday in Cyprus (1): introduction
June 25th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Top of my bucket list is – so long as I have reasonable health and wealth – to have visited as many countries as my age. I’m 70 today and I’m off to Cyprus which will be my 72nd country. It is an organised tour with the company Voyages Jules Verne and involves equal time in the north and the south.
Cyprus is a small nation: an island in the eastern Mediterranean which at its extremes is just 150 miles long from east to west and 100 miles wide from north to south. The estimated population is only just over a million – barely half that of Northern Ireland – although there are almost as many Cypriots living off the island as on it.
In spite of its small size, its location has given it a complicated history with successive occupations by the Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Franks, Venetians, Ottomans, and British. Independence came in 1960 with a constitution which shared power between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities in the ratio 70:30.
But the new state lasted less than a decade and a half when Turkey invaded the north of Cyprus in 1974 occupying 36% of the island.
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A review of “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid”
June 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I’ve recently viewed again (fourth time) this classic from 1969.
This immensely popular film is a chase movie, a buddy movie, an action-comedy movie, all in the guise of a western. It declares at the beginning: “Most of what follows is true”. Sure there was a Butch and a Kid, played respectively by Paul Newman and Robert Redford at the height of their cinematic allure, but this is a very sanitised view of the Hole in the Wall Gang and the decline of the wild west. For a much more hard-hitting western set in the same period and similarly concluding south of the border, see “The Wild Bunch” which was released the same year.
This film won four Academy Awards. The first went to William Goldman for his sharp sceeenplay with memorable lines like “What do you mean you can’t swim? The fall’ll probably kill ya!” and “Who ARE those guys?” (uttered three times). The second was taken by Conrad Hall for his distinctive cinematography characterised by lots of scenes in sepia. And the other two Oscars were won by Burt Bacharach for his music and the song “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”.
Both “Butch Cassidy” and “The Wild Bunch” conclude with a huge Latin American shoot-out, but it is the former that deploys a freeze shot that spares the viewer and immortalises the stars.
If you like classic movies, you can check out my reviews of 60 of them here.
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Whose side is Turkey on?
June 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
“The US and Europe need Turkey for a host of strategic, political, practical and geographical reasons. But Turkey under Erdogan is proving a less than constant friend. Not so much an ally, it is increasingly seen as a threat.”
On the day when Turkey holds hard-fought presidential and parliamentary elections, Simon Tisdall uses an article in the “Observer” newspaper to explain how the country is an increasingly unreliable ally of the West under the dangerous leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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A review of the new movie “Ocean’s Eight”
June 23rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
One effective way of providing more high-profile roles for more talented actresses is to take an existing successful franchise and gender-swap the characters. It was tried with “Ghostbusters” and now we have a female version of the ensemble heist movie that we saw with “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) [my review here], “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004) [my review here] and “Ocean’s Thirteen” (2007) [my review here].
The three previous works were all directed by Steven Soderbergh who this time is simply a producer, handing the directorial reins to Gary Ross (“The Hunger Games”) who co-wrote the script with Olivia Milch.
There is a wonderful cast list with lots of established talent – headed by Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway – supplemented with some newer screen faces – such as Rihinna and Awkafina – designed to attract a wide (largely female, no doubt) demographic. The other members of the octet, each recruited to bring particular skills to the robbery, are played by Helena Bonham Carter, Sarah Paulson and Mindy Kaling.
As if this was not enough thespian stardom, there is a charming cameo from James Cordon and the credits include a long list of famous people as themselves attending the ball at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The actors look cool and the production is flashy in this enjoyable romp, but it is a triumph of style over substance with no real sense of excitement or jeopardy.
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It’s World Refugee Day …
June 20th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
… and the “Guardian” newspaper has produced this special feature.
Faced with a lack of official data, the Dutch activist group United for Intercultural Action has gathered newspaper articles, NGO records and coastguard reports to collect details of the deaths of 34,361 migrants travelling to Europe since the early 1990s.
The List is revealing: deaths do not just occur at sea, but in detention blocks, asylum units and town centres. Some 400 have taken their own lives; more than 600 have died violently at the hands of others.
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Word of the day: mastaba
June 19th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Mastaba is the Arabic word for bench. It is a trapezoid shape which originated in Mesopotamia 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.
Mastaba is also the title of a new 600-tonne, 20-metre high floating sculpture made from more than 7,000 colourful oil barrels which has just been unveiled on London’s Serpentine. It is the work of Bulgarian artist Christo and I’m looking forward to visiting it.
You can see some picture of the structure here.
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