Cyprus - Garden of Delights

Our excursion called Garden of Delights, took us into the hills of Cyprus where olive and carob trees grow. The hillsides are beautiful overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. In, what was called a Theme Park, we were shown the old style of how olive oil was made in ancient times. Huge stones, monoliths, with holes in them gave a clue as to how. We learned that an olive tree will always return. In ancient times a person would be punished by having their olive trees burnt to the ground, but a new shoot always appeared. Carob in Greek means locust. According to our tour guide from the Greek translation of the Bible John the Baptist ate Locust. We were lead to believe this meant grasshoppers, but he actually ate carob.

Our next stop was into a little village to sample some local wine. The wine tasted like port, very good. We were also offered some fire water. Oooooh, this tasted like moonshine. No Thank You.

The Church of the Holy Cross in this village has a holy relic, the hem of Jesus robe which He wore to His Crucifixion. St. Helena, Constantine's mother gave it to the Church.

Time for shopping in the little shops. Most of the shops sold doilies. I'm not too crazy about them, but they were handmade by little old women. I went into one shop to look around and, sure enough, sitting there was an elderly woman crocheting these doiles. Nice, but not interested. As I left the shop out the back way an elderly man grabbed my wrist and asked me to go back into the shop to buy his wife's doilies. I said "no thank you". He insisted. He even offered me a glass of wine. "Okey" I said. He had me taste the grapes that the wine was made from. They were small and purple. Tasted good. Then he poured me a small cup of wine. It was ok. He wanted to sell me a bottle. I told him  "I can't take it on the plane". He then said "look at his wife's lacy doilies". I figured I better buy something or I'm never getting out of there. I picked up a doily for 6 euros, but only had a ten and two five dollar bills. I showed them to the old lady and she said "that's good" and was about to grab my $20.00, when I said "Wait a minute, these doilies are only 6 euros". So she took the ten. Oh well, the price was worth it for the story. The doily now sits on my dining table and it will always remind me of Cyprus and that elderly couple.

I love Cyprus. It's a very Christian country. Many small villages that are all named after a saint, plus the village church is the name of the Village saint. People there are, for the most part, named after a saint and celebrate their patron saint's day, including receiving presents, moreso than celebrating their own birth date.

Cyprus has 320 days of sun and so each home has solar panels on the roofs to heat their water, which began in the 1960s. Cyprus is definately worth a revisit.