Visiting CyHerbia

 For the third of our full-morning outings, we had decided to visit Cyherbia. Our extra guest this time was 19-year-old K, who had never been there before. We visited for the first time two years ago, when the family was staying, and had thought it pleasant but not too memorable. However when we asked our ten-year-old grandson what he particularly wanted to do this year, his first response was 'the maze!' 

We've had quite a bit of discussion about whether the Cyherbia hedged construction is technically a maze or a labyrinth. It's called both in different places. According to Google, a labyrinth is a complex but essentially straightforward path with no digressions or ways to go wrong, whereas a maze has false paths that lead nowhere. Under that definition, Cyherbia has a maze. 

An adult is supposed to accompany each child, but it was impossible to take that too seriously. Our grandson rushed into the maze cheerfully, and we could hear him most of the time, although we couldn't always see him. The rest of us wandered in in ones and twos. 

I know the infallible (if not very efficient) way of getting through a maze, by keeping a hedge always to my right, so using this method I fairly quickly found myself at the lookout point where, at the top of some steps, I took that second photo. Our grandson was still happily getting himself lost but we could see his hat and he waved a hand when he asked. 

Eventually we persuaded the children that it was time to move on to the next attraction. When we arrived and bought the tickets, we were given two sheets of questions for the children, similar to the kinds of things children on school field trips have to fill in. Our granddaughter was quite interested at first, and wanted to do this with her mother. But our grandson decided he didn't want to do it, so our friend K took over his sheet. In the maze, they had to find different models of birds which were hidden in some of the dead ends. 

Our next stop was the fairy garden, which is beautifully made and maintained. 

There were questions about that on the sheets too, requiring some observation and counting. I never found that kind of thing very interesting when I was at school, but it does mean people slow down a bit and have a proper look at what's on display. And they weren't excessive questions at Cyherbia. 

There's so much detail in the fairy garden, it was well worth spending some time looking. 

As we moved on, I was surprised to see a realistic looking deer by the path:

By this stage we were 'walking around Cyprus', with plenty of little information notices to read, describing different locations. And filling in questions on the sheets... 

There was a lot more: a bower where we could sit for photos, a little house explaining the flora and fauna of the island, and so much more. Towards the end we went around the extensive herb gardens, enjoying the aromas (and finding more answers to questions on the sheets). 

There was a little playground, too, although it was only supposed to be for children up to the age of seven or eight. And then we sat down in the café and were brought our complementary herbal teas. We think they were mainly chamomile; I drank about half of mine, but it wasn't my favourite taste. Still, it's a nice gesture at the end of an hour or more of gentle meandering around the area.

We had promised the children another visit to the maze, so we went back there and they went through a couple of times, including having a race. There weren't many other people around, so we didn't think it would be disturbing anyone. 

As with the camel park and the paradox museum, we couldn't take any food or drink into Cyherbia. And whereas there are suitable parks nearby the other two venues, Cyherbia is rather out of the way, with nothing obvious nearby. 

So we drove back to Rizoelia park which is in Aradippou, and had our picnic there. It's on a hill with an excellent view over Larnaka. 

Visiting the Paradox Museum in Limassol

 The second 'longer' trip we decided to do with our visiting family was to the Paradox Museum in Limassol. It was a bit further away than we wanted to go, ideally; our ten-year-old grandson is prone to car-sickness. But we had seen recommendations from various friends who had visited, so thought it worth trying. 

We wanted to check opening hours. The website is not the clearest, but we were glad we looked as it recommended booking tickets in advance, rather than just turning up, as there were apparently limited spaces. We didn't expect it to be full; this was still in the Cyprus school term-time. But after seeing coach-loads of school classes visiting the Camel Park on Monday, we thought we had better make a booking rather than risk being turned away. There were seven of us going; this time our 16-year-old friend H was joining us. 

We were able to take advantage of the four-person family ticket, and an over-65, but it was still somewhat pricey. However, we hoped it would be worthwhile. It would certainly be something different.

It took us rather more than an hour to get there, since car-sickness struck, but I will gloss over that quickly. We had booked for 11.30am, and arrived in the area by about 11.25. The museum doesn't have its own parking, but the Limassol marina is nearby and has plenty of parking space. It was 11.35 by the time we reached the doors of the museum, but it evidently wasn't at all crowded. 

We were greeted by friendly staff in black and white uniforms, and given a few basic guidelines. They said there was a direction to follow, rather like the arrows in Ikea, but we could spend as much time as we wanted at each attraction. No food or drink was allowed, but cameras welcome - indeed, strongly encouraged. 

The first few exhibits were fairly basic optical illusions, things to look at but without much to do. There was a tilting mirror, for instance:

There were patterns which seemed to swirl in different ways: 

There were chequered and similar illusions, tricking us into thinking that the lines or patterns were bulging, or in some way not what they appeared:

We didn't spend very long with these; they were interesting, but I did hope there would be rather more, or we would be finished in fifteen minutes...

I was not disappointed. This mirror room created some excellent illusions, and we all played with it extensively:

This one was rather disturbing, creating a serving dish with - apparently - someone's head inside:

The camouflage area was interesting, although we never worked out how to hide entirely. One had to don a voluminous robe with similar paint-style splatters and attempt to blend in with the background:

I never quite worked out how this room functioned, enabling us to appear to be different heights. We spent a lot of time there; this is just one of the results:

One of my favourite things was something that looked like a long, wide tube - it wasn't obvious that it was anything special. But everyone else was playing in one of the rooms, so I peeped in one end. The instructions said to ask someone else to look in the other end... and then the effect was stunning! 

It reminded me of those cardboard tube kaleidoscopes that we had as children. 

This one, looking down into apparently endless pentagons, was a bit scary for those of us not keen on heights:

And there was much more too. Apparently there are fifty exhibits in all. We spent quite a bit of time in a sideways room where one set a pose and then rotated the camera, but none of the photos look all that spectacular.  There was also a room of mirrors where one could see thousands of images of oneself...  for a moment I wasn't sure how to get out!  

The final exhibit was this one: the result is a rotated image but I think it's quite effective:

The website had told us to allow around 60-90 minutes to get around, and it took us a little over an hour. We could perhaps have taken it more slowly, but we followed the lead of our grandchildren. They found the different rooms more interesting than the exhibits on the walls, and very much liked trying out different poses, asking us all to take photos. 

At the end - by the entrance area - there's a little shop. There were all kinds of items: books about paradoxes, little toy puzzles, tee-shirts and more. There were a few puzzles on display that could be tried out, and some of us had fun doing that. We weren't really tempted to buy anything; the prices were a little high, and we didn't think we needed any more novelties. The museum staff didn't try to persuade us - they were all extremely helpful and willing to answer questions, but put no pressure on at all. 

It wasn't a cheap expedition, but it was definitely worth doing once. Our grandchildren - aged ten and eight - were just the right age to enjoy it. Older children and teens would probably find different possibilities, and understand better how everything worked, but I doubt if it would be of much interest to children under the age of about six or seven.

The Paradox Museum hasn't been around all that long; it's situated in a warehouse that previously housed part of the Limassol boat show, apparently. I don't know how long it will stay, as the structures looked somewhat temporary.  

Definitely recommended. 

Visiting the beach

After we had been living in Cyprus for a couple of years, a friend in the UK commented that we must have a wonderful life, going to the beach every day. I replied that we didn't visit the beach very often despite living only about a mile away from the sea. I explained that living here is very different from being a tourist, and that we'd acclimatised to the extent that, unless we had guests staying, we only really considered it 'beach weather' from June to September.

Now we've been here nearly eighteen years, we don't go to the beach other than during July and August. Indeed, I'm not sure that we really go 'to the beach', as such; we like to cool down in the water, perhaps to swim a little. But we have no wish to sunbathe, or build sandcastles. We only go when it's shady, not before about 5.00pm.

Last year, I didn't go to the beach at all. Not once. That's mainly because I was in the UK from the end of June until mid-August, but if I'd wanted to, I could have gone. I did walk, a few times, along the sea front, and we drove past the beach a few times. But I didn't get my feet wet in the sea; I didn't take my shoes off and walk along the beach. We didn't spend any evenings there at all.

But this year, after much discussion, we and our closest Cyprus friends decided that we'd get together at the beach yesterday evening, to swim and then have a picnic. So I cleaned out our cool box (not used for nearly two years), chopped salad vegetables, and cooked some halloumi; Richard delved into our storage closet (which is technically a shower, but that's another story...) for our beach chairs and mats.

Then, after changing into swimsuits, we drove to our favourite spot, perhaps three kilometres away. I expect it's quite crowded during the main part of the day, this being high season, but there weren't many other people around at 5.30pm; most of those had gone by 6.30.

Tim and I went into the water along with most of our friends. It wasn't quite as warm as I remembered from previous years, and there were some quite chilly spots as we waded out, but it wasn't  unpleasant. We managed to swim a little. Neither of us is very good at swimming, and we won't put our heads in the water, but it's good exercise, and fun in a strange sort of way, although it was windy and the waves were bigger than we liked.

Then we had our picnic, and chatted with our friends, and decided that it was relaxing and enjoyable being by the sea, even if it was rather sandier than any of the adults liked.

We might even go again next week.

Summer in Cyprus: first trip to the beach

Yesterday afternoon, some of the Cyprus home educators decided to meet on the beach, taking picnics. I went with our friends - Richard joined us later - and was surprised to find how very warm the sea was, given that the weather hasn't yet got REALLY hot, and it's only early June. I walked out into the sea up to waist height and didn't feel at all chilly. I didn't swim; I was wearing my swimsuit but hadn't taken my tee-shirt off, thinking I wouldn't want to go more than ankle deep, but it was very nice to be in the sea again.

Elisabeth spent some time trying to dig in the sand with a selection of small spades, then thought she might like a drink of water:


She is quite determined, but did become somewhat annoyed that she couldn't work out how to get into it by herself:


Helen was there too, but spent a lot of time playing with the other children and digging by the sea. I spent some time showing her how to pack sand in a bucket and the turn it over to make a little castle, which she promptly knocked down. She did sit still for a couple of minutes, though:


Then she was off, running around and playing. The small have so much energy. It was lovely to see how, at two-and-three-quarters, Helen is now starting to play with another friend's daughter Aimee, who is of similar age. At one point they found a "stage" where they stood side by side singing:


The sun starts to go down in Cyprus fairly early, even at this time of year. All the older children had been playing in and out of the sea, coming to eat a bit and then going back into the water. As the light faded, they were still doing so:


Before we ate, I took Elisabeth into the sea to get most of the sand off her, and to wash my own hands (not that sea water is particularly hygienic, but it's better than mixing food with sand). She stayed fairly clean, on one or other of her parents, while she ate some bread and cheese and cucumber, but then decided to get down and explore the beach some more.

A while later, Helen, who had seen me washing her little sister earlier, sidled up to me, pulled a sad face, and said, 'Sue.... Elisabess is dirty again!'

I think she's learning the art of understatement...

Green Monday picnic and kite-flying attempts

Today is the first day of Lent in the Protestant/Western church. Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, when many of us made and ate pancakes - traditional for the last day before Lent; historically it was to use up sugar, eggs etc from the household store, preparatory to Lenten fasting.

However, Lenten fasting doesn't seem to happen much in the Western world - at most people might give up chocolate, or perhaps computer games. Not flour and eggs.

This year, unusually, Western and Eastern Easters fall on the same date: April 4th. So that means that Lent starts the same week for us all. In the Eastern calendar, however, it's counted a little differently so that Lent actually began on Monday this week, after the Carnival weekend (where children dress up and go on parades... although traditionally it was the time to eat up the household meat, again prior to fasting.)

On Green Monday in Cyprus, people - I'm told - clean their houses from top to bottom (it's also sometimes known as 'Clean Monday') and then go out on picnics with their families and friends, and the children fly kites. Even if they're not fasting or cutting out meat during Lent (increasingly rare, even here) they don't eat meat on Green Monday.

We don't usually do anything to mark the date; however, Green Monday is a public holiday, so Richard planned to spend his day working on King Malu. But on Sunday we had text messages from a friend - the wife of one of his colleagues - suggesting we might get together for a picnic on the Monday. Since the weather was good, and it sounded like a good idea to get out and socialise for an hour or two, we said we'd like to do that. We were going to go somewhere near the Salt Lake, but in the event it was totally packed with Cypriot picnickers, even at 12.30 (which is earlier than they usually eat lunch).

So our friends suggested we go up to the Aradippou picnic site. The top area with benches and tables was apparently also full of people having picnics already, so they found a pleasant spot part-way up the hill.

They had brought some kites. During and after our lunch, the various children attempted to fly them:


- but without any success. Richard, who watches wind speeds and other weather conditions closely since learning to sail, said that there wasn't enough wind. There were occasional gusts and the kites appeared to bob about for a few seconds, only to come crashing down.


Still, the children had fun in the attempt, and in playing together for an hour or so, and the adults enjoyed the fresh air and catching up with each other.

You can see from the photos how very green Cyprus has become with the heavy downpours of rain we've had in the past few months. It really was a lovely day, too. Yesterday was warm as well, probably about 22C; today's a bit cooler and has been rather grey, though still nothing like as cold as it was earlier in the month.