Limassol

Our next port of call was Limassol on the island of Cyprus. 

In the 60's Cyprus was often in our news.

People of Greek and Turkish origin, who had lived alongside each other for generations, but were distinguished by their mother tongue and religion, had fallen out. 

Cyprus had recently been a British Crown Colony, and part of the British Empire. In 1960 it was granted independence and became a self-governing Republic, in the terms of a newly drafted constitution. Yet now the Greek speakers wanted to give that up and unite with other Greek speaking territories as part of a wider Greece, Enosis.

Civil violence soon broke out, with both Greece and Turkey rattling their sabres in support of their respective coreligionists. A Greek coup d'état in 1974 resulted in a full-on Turkish invasion to prevent Enosis. As a result, the island was partitioned and remains so.

So, I was interested to see how things are today.

The first thing we noticed, off the boat, was that Cypriots drive on the correct side (the left). But, like Australia, the currency is no longer the Pound. Cyprus is now a member of both the European Union and the Eurozone. There is still a Turkish enclave but sporadic unification talks continue. As in Ireland, religiously motivated killings have largely abated and people are getting along better again.  Cyprus is now one of the wealthiest EU members in the Mediterranean, so integration with poor Greece is no longer on the agenda.

We had prebooked a ship's excursion on a bus that went along the coast to the Archaeological Site of the Tombs of the Kings and the nearby Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos.  

Cyprus, was an important source of copper ore (the origin of its name) and metal during the Bronze Age has a long history of invasion, by the usual culprits: Ancient Greeks; Macedonians (Alexander); Romans; Byzantines; Ottomans; British; etc. These tombs of the wealthy date back to the Roman period.

The Tombs of the Kings - actually, there were no kings at this time - they are tombs of wealthy Romans
The guy with the camera is a doppelganger

In 1965 a team of Polish archaeologists investigating a couple of Grecian statues nearby - the gods Asclepius and Artemis - discovered the buried remains of a town at Paphos, believed to have been destroyed and abandoned after the earthquakes during the 4th century CE.

Among the remains so far uncovered are two large Roman villas built during the 2nd century CE. One of these, called the House of Dionysos, after several imaged of the god found inside, is now a museum displaying its mosaic floors.

House of Dionysos - a sample - there are many rooms with almost complete mosaic floors

Along the coast, we stopped to admire the rock outcrop that was the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite (the Roman Venus). Believers are divided on how this took place. Wikipedia tells us: according to one school of believers, Gaia (Mother Earth) asked one of her sons, Cronus, to mutilate his father, Uranus (Sky). Cronus cut off Uranus' testicles and threw them into the sea. Aphrodite was born out of the foam caused by Uranus' genitals. 

The local version asserts that Aphrodite’s Rock is a part of the lower body of Uranus. In this version, Cronus ambushed his father and cut him below the waist with a scythe. As he tried to escape flying, Uranus lost parts of his truncated body and testicles into the sea. A white foam appeared from which a maiden arose, the waves first taking her to Kythera and then bringing her to Cyprus. The maiden, named Aphrodite, went to the assembly of gods from Cyprus.

The birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite
A local myth is that any person who swims around the Aphrodite Rock will be blessed with eternal beauty

Aphrodite/Venus attracted a large cult following in Paphos, at the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, which was later crushed by the Eastern Roman Christians (Byzantines). 

As is often the case with these excursions we also paused for a shopping opportunity, on this occasion at modern Paphos.

Modern Paphos and a, mostly stationary, wind farm at Kouklia
(most land based farms spend over 60% of their time stationary - to get a 50% utility factor they need to be off-shore)

It was time to return to the ship and set sail for Santorini (Thira)