Thursday, April 10, 2025

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:

tilting mirror at Paradox museum in Limassol

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. 

No comments: