What to see in Larnaka

 For the first ten days of the month, we had some friends visiting: a couple we used to know well when we lived in Colorado Springs, back in the early 1990s.  We had not seen one of them for over thirty years! It was wonderful to spend time together, and also to show them something of the area. Richard took a week off (well, mostly off...) and took them on a few trips further afield. But we also liked showing them some of the sights and places of interest in and around Larnaka. 

On the first morning, we took a walk to the Salt Lake trail. We only went as far as the bird-watching platform, and it was disappointing: a couple of flamingoes in the distance, and not much else. There haven't been as many flamingoes as usual this year, and signs have been posted clearly prohibiting visitors from leaving the trail and walking closer to the lake. I didn't take any photos.

In the afternoon, we walked along Larnaka sea front, looking at statues and shops, and eventually reached St Lazarus Church. This is where Lazarus - sister of Mary and Martha - came to be bishop, and where he was buried, according to tradition, when he died for the second time. 

There's often construction or repair work going on, and sometimes hordes of pigeons in the grounds. But we didn't see many birds, and the church was open for visitors. One has to dress appropriately - no shorts, or bare shoulders. But it's February; we were all dressed in long trousers and more than one warm, long-sleeved layer. 

I've been inside the church several times previously, and am not a huge fan of the ornate decorations found in many Greek Orthodox churches. But it's an interesting place to see, and visitors always seem impressed with the interior. Here's just one image (taken by one of our friends).

I didn't go down to the crypt, although our friends did. 

Not far from St Lazarus is the Larnaka mosque:

We didn't go inside - I'm not sure if it was open to the public. But it's also quite an impressive looking building. It was closed down when we first moved here, but there's a growing Muslim population, including some of the asylum seekers and refugees, and so the mosque is now refurbished and used. 

Walking back to the sea-front, the third imposing building is the old fort:

We didn't go inside that, either. It was near to the closing time, and we didn't want to have to pay for just twenty minutes or so inside.  From past experience, it's not all that extensive or exciting anyway. But we could see through the entrance:

It's nicely renovated, and although I haven't been for some years now, I understand there's an indoor mini museum as well as the uncovered area, and information about how the fort was used, many years ago.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had thought of going to Cyherbia. But when Richard checked the location on his phone, we learned that it was closed during February, other than at weekends. So instead we drove to the Oroklini bird-watching platform, hoping to get a better view of flamingoes. We had never been there before, but other friends who visit go there regularly.  I was quite surprised at the impressive view of Oroklini lake:

The platform has a display showing different kinds of local birds, and our friends were able to identify many of them. We did see flamingoes, although not many, and not very close. 

Then we went to have ice cream on the Makenzy promenade, and walked around the fishing 'village' - really a kind of mini harbour for fishing boats. 

On other days our friends went sailing, and we drove to Curium, which I'll write about in a separate post at some point. We had a couple of take-away evening meals, and were treated to a meze at our favourite restaurant, Kyra Giorgena. 

We decided, after all, not to visit CyHerbia this time. On Saturday morning - when it was raining - Richard took our friends to see Angeloktisti (the church of the angels) in Kiti. Then they went to the Sultan Tekke mosque near the Salt Lake. All worth seeing, but I had seen them before and needed to do things at home. 

There are several museums in Larnaka, but we decided against going to any of those - we didn't need to fill up every minute of time with places of interest. Just walking around the block, seeing typical Cypriot homes, is something of an adventure to people new to the country.

But we did do two more fairly local things: we drove to the top of Rizoleia hill to see the view over Larnaka (and to have some hot drinks).

And on our friends' last afternoon, after a morning trip to Nicosia with Richard, one of our friends and Richard went to Salina Park, for more hot drinks, and time to chat.

It was good to have places to visit and see that were within walking distance, or a short drive, rather than taking up a whole morning or day out.  The weather was mostly dry and sunny, but not over-warm, so we didn't have ice cream more than once. Nor did we go to the beach. Since there were no children, we also didn't go to any of the many playgrounds that can be found within Larnaka and nearby locations. 

Life racing by in Cyprus once more

It's strange how, sometimes, life seems to go by quite slowly. The winter seemed endless, although it was only a couple of months .I know that the summer is likely to drag too. But now that spring is here, a couple of weeks appear - if it's not too much of a cliché - to have flown by. I had to look on my calendar, and then my camera to see what we'd done. 

There were the usual two public holidays on March 25th (Greek National Day) and April 1st. Since both those dates fell on a Sunday this year, there wasn't any obvious effect on the general public. Shops and businesses were closed anyway. We don't even live near any schools or the parade route any more, so we weren't awakened early by drum beats and whistles, as we were in our old house.

Still, I did go to a church service with my friends a couple of weeks ago, and then popped to the PO Box to collect mail. We happened to be there just as one of the parades was starting around St Lazarus Church, so we paused for a moment to watch: 

We seem to have spent a lot of time with different friends, too. We often see friends several times per week, but not, in general, quite so many different ones. Very unusually we were treated to meals out three times in two weeks, each by different people. All meze meals, but at three different places. One was a fairly newly-opened Syrian restaurant, which was rather up-market and very pleasant. One was at our favourite local taverna, and the third was on a rooftop restaurant near St Lazarus Church, which offered vegetarian meze. It included this rather delicious feta/tomato/onion dish:

And also this (melted cheese on sliced aubergine): 

However, my camera is devoid of pictures of anything much else. 

Possibly this is because our world has been rather taken up by forthcoming changes in Richard's office; for various reasons, almost everyone else will be leaving in the summer. So, with rising costs (and signifcantly reduced funding from the US) it was deemed to be time to close the office. He will be continuing some of the production work for at least another year or two, probably more, but will be doing so from the 'studio' in our guest flat. 

So although he is still officially on sabbatical, his time and energy has been taken up in beginning to dismantle some of the current office furniture and equipment, moving it here, and setting up a new production office in the studio. This has meant that the studio - which had become a general dumping ground for sailing and other equipment - has had to be cleared out... and our guest flat is currently in chaos. I haven't been much involved in the physical work, but somehow this, and related discussions, have taken up a huge amount of emotional energy.  

Our first Greek Orthodox Christening in Cyprus

We were invited, for the first time, to a Greek Orthodox Christening service, on Sunday. Like Anglicans, babies are baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church, although it usually seems to be when they are around six months old. It's much more of a big ceremony; in the Anglican Church, at least our traditions, dedications and baptisms of infants take place during regular morning services, to show that they are a part of the church family. The ceremony takes perhaps ten minutes. In the Greek Orthodox Church, however, the ceremony lasts an hour - and that without any congregational singing, nor even a sermon. So it's done as a special service, usually at 11am after the ordinary service has finished.

We'd been invited by text, to St Lazarus Church at 11am, with various reminders. We weren't sure what to wear, but decided that smart trousers for Richard would be better than jeans, and I thought that, since it was reasonably warm, I should dig out one of my skirts and a pair of sandals.

Thus arrayed, we arrived at St Lazarus Church at almost exactly 11am. We realised that most things don't start on time in Cyprus, but expected to see a few folk we knew...


People were just coming out. We saw someone we knew... but he wasn't connected with the christening. He said it had been a longer service than usual as the Bishop was there.

So we wandered about, peeping into the church every so often. It's quite a tourist attraction so there were visitors going in, looking around, and going out again.

Eventually we walked up the road to our friends' house, and Richard found them still there. Apparently the Christening was at 12, not 11... somewhere he had missed a text message.

So we went down to Alexander's on the sea-front, and had some coffee. At least, Richard did. I had my first frappé of the year. Very pleasant it was, too.

Then we headed back to St Lazarus, and got there about 11.50. This time the Christening party were there, so we went inside. Did we have to sit separately, we wondered? Apparently not. Were we allowed to take photos? Yes, no problem.

At 11.55 the service started. There were only about 15 people present including the family... but it was all quite informal. Other guests arrived around noon, or even later. By the time it ended, there were probably 30 or 35 people there.

The whole thing was in Greek - probably Ancient Greek, so we didn't expect to understand it. The mother isn't supposed to touch the baby at all; instead she's held by her godmother. The priest was reading something from a book, presumably some kind of liturgy.


At one point, the godmother had to give some responses - and I even caught a few words. They sounded similar to the promises made by Anglican godparents, although they were repeated three times rather than just once.


Up to this point, it all seemed fairly familiar despite being in a very ornate building in a language we didn't understand. Everyone was happy, and the baby was doing well.

Then she was taken away from the main area, and her clothes removed. Was she going to change into a special christening outfit...? No. Instead, the priest anointed her with some special oil. She was not impressed. She started crying... and the only person who was able to hold her was her godmother. Apparently, once this part of the ceremony begins, if her parents touch her she becomes unclean and the whole thing would have to start all over again. So they just had to watch and listen while their little one became more and more distressed. I'm not sure I could have gone through with it if it had been one of mine.

After the oil, the baby was immersed three times in water. She went in right up to her neck, and water was then splashed all over her head so that she was, basically, fully immersed. By this time she was screaming continually... and this is not a baby who usually cries much at all.


She was then dried, and while we couldn't see everything that was going on, I think there was more oil put on her, and more liturgy said. Then the priest cut off some of her curls. We asked afterwards why that was, and nobody knew. She was dressed in a pretty (but not very comfortable looking) Christening gown and hat, and gradually calmed down in her godmother's arms, although she started crying again whenever she caught sight of the priest. I'm sure he's a very nice man - he seemed friendly, and apparently apologised to the baby's father... but said it all had to be done properly.

Towards the end, a young lad carrying a candle accompanied the godmother and baby as they walked around the table while the priest swung some incense and said more liturgy. They stopped several times in different places; I've no idea what the significance was.


The whole thing took about an hour. It was an interesting experience for us, traumatic for the baby, and devastating for the baby's mother!

However, the baby was then taken home for a feed and a nap, after which she recovered fairly quickly, and the rest of us were given a sumptuous spread, prepared by some of the baby's relatives.

The sun shone, and it was pleasantly warm. Richard was getting over a nasty cough and I was getting over an unpleasant sinus infection, but we both felt much better as we sat and chatted with people we knew, and enjoyed the excellent food.

We left about 3pm, and when I got home it was chilly enough that I changed into jeans, socks and trainers pretty quickly!