What is that white stuff- snow ?

Tomb at ancient Tamassos

I am heading out of town for a small day trip to go and see a few sights a bit to the south. The first is one more of the old cities of Cyprus the Ancient Tamassos - it is actually not that far from the city in a small village. But when I get there it is a bit disappointing there really are not a lot to see around this place. There is a couple of underground constructions which is probably grave chambers of some sort and above ground there is virtually no remains of the city bare some foundation which could be from any time period except the fact they say it is a couple of thousand years old.

Next stop is at a little monastery which is still working so there are a few nuns walking around the area. It has got some nice buildings around a courtyard but unfortunately the church is closed because of some sort of renovation. It looks like they have taken the entire floor out of the building and are going to rebuild it more or less from scratch.

The Machairas Monastery

The next stop is up in the foothills of the Trodous Mountains. Up there is one of the biggest monasteries on Cyprus. It is up a widening mountain road and as we go up the hill there are cars going down and one of them got some sort of white sculpture on the front window - maybe it is some sort of lucky charm they have bought at the monastery - who knows? There is another car coming down with the same white thing in front window and this time I can see what it is - it is a snowman - a snowman in Cyprus that’s not reasonable especially not given the fact we are not up all that high. Well as we drive along more snow men decorated cars are going down the hill.

After a little while longer there is indeed snow next to the road not a lot but some and further down the road there is still more snow. Actually all of the mountains are sort of white. Well nothing to do but continue down the road and get there and eventually I get there and it is a pretty big complex.

The giant golfball memorial

Unfortunately most of it is closed because of renovation but one of the two churches at the site is open. It is a strange church I have never seen any church quite like this one. It got stone walls but the church entrance is actually at the first floor while the ground level is used for something else - I am not sure what. The roof of the church is made of wood and it is held up by some giant pole of wood each of them is made by one piece of wood. It is probably some very big cypress trees which have been used to make them in total there are 12 poles inside the church and another 8 outside carrying the roof.

Heading back the road it is time to make a quick photo stop to see the entire monastery complex covered in snow. Apparently the snow is several days old and it is melting but only slowly. On top of one of the mountains is a big monument for all the golfers of the world - the giant golf ball. Ok maybe it is not an important monument to all the golfers of the world but a military listening station but it do look like a golf ball.

On the road back it is possibly to see a couple of more monasteries but the inhabitants of these places don’t really like tourist hence it is only possible to observe them from a distance. Anyways it is time to get back to town and get ready for the night anyways.