Cyprus is like a springboard, thrown into the eastern mediterranean. How many civilizations have used this "springboard" to shuttle between Greece and Italy, turkey and Asia Minor to the north, and Jerusalem, Beirut and Damascus to the east. The island is a witness to the evolution of civilizations, and it is not immune to be involved in it.
But geopolitical developments to this day, Cyprus's role has been similar to the cutscene of soy sauce dragon sets, the islanders have gradually become accustomed to the long period of division and stalemate, and the only thing that remains unchanged day by day is the endless stream of Russian tourists - churches, monasteries and heritage parks, whether they are the side dishes of tourism or the theme of history lessons, sometimes it is really unclear.
In any case, the travel experience of this country is as mottled as its history; Maybe a little more Turkey than Greece, a little more Greece than Turkey, a little more Arabia than the Mediterranean, and a little more Mediterranean than Arabia. You may not be able to distinguish every ingredient in this table, but the meal itself is undoubtedly refreshing and delicious.
In Ayia Napa, take wedding photos on the cliff and dive under the cliff for fun. (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
Historic wire balls and Paphos Grand Park
Cyprus has 3 World Heritage Sites, one of which paphos is one. In 1980 , Paphos was selected as a whole for its possession of Aphrodite-related remains (see Cyprus Chronicle: Survivors of the River of Time Gathered Here) and rich pre-Greek civilizational remains. Unesco's official website says the mosaics from the new Paphos site are among the most beautiful in the world.
But my first impression of Paphos was like a western county. The residents' self-built cement buildings have a single structure, and each roof is equipped with a huge stainless steel water tower, and the whole city shines at noon, like an open-pit diamond mine. There is only one large shopping centre in town, with some shops that reassure older British visitors: Boots, Vodafone, the Body Shop and Lush.
Trying to comb through the "flow chart" of the country's civilization while walking in Cyprus is like combing a tightrope ball into a straight line, which is difficult. Since the Neolithic Age, it has been inhabited by humans, between Eurasia, between the West and the East, between the maritime continents, and Cyprus was ruled by Mycenae, Phoenicia, the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Byzantium, the Arab Empire, Venice, Ottoman Turkey, and even the modern suzerainty of Britain.
According to the Bible, the first ministry of the apostle Paul was also in Cyprus, in 45 A.D., paphos was the capital of Cyprus, and the rulers here believed in Jesus at Paul's inspiration and began the process of Christianization in Cyprus. According to local legend, Paul was whipped 39 times by locals on a pillar in front of a church. The pillar is still there.
Today, in Paphos, a large number of wildernesses have been perfectly protected, forming two large ruins of paphos Archaeological Park and Tomb of kings, full of palaces, mansions, theaters, barracks, fortresses, and mausoleums. Visitors can find huge mosaics on some ground, mostly Greek mythological characters, interspersed with details of life, such as the most famous "House of Dionysos", originally built in the 2nd century and destroyed by an earthquake in the 4th century, but many mosaics survive, you can see Dionysus, narcissistic Narcissus, Siren Skula and so on.
As for the Tomb of the Kings, it probably belonged to the nobles and gentry of the time, covering a vast area, complex structure, and magnificent momentum, but the interior was stolen and excavated, leaving only an empty burial chamber. Like all the mosaics and Greek columns along the Mediterranean coast, the ruins of Paphos have created a system of familiar and lackluster routes and identification.
Ancient church in Paphos Archaeological Site Park (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
The Englishman Colin Speron hiked six hundred miles on the land in the early summer of 1972, climbing mountains, diving, and going down mines, and later wrote the book Eros: Deep into Cyprus. His exploration of the wilderness in these mounds was much more exciting. There was no "World Heritage Site" at the time, and he stumbled into a ruined church, stumbled into a tunnel, and found that it was actually a Byzantine gutter. He climbed down the ditch under the ground to the ground of the sidewalk, where an old English woman looked down, and for a moment her eyes widened and narrowed, and the old lady was so frightened that she pulled out her legs and left.
"I heard the exorcism-like click of her tongue and the sharp click of those practical shoes on the paved floor." But before it was over, Sperron climbed forward, and when he saw the light of day again, he was lying under the oval dome of a 7th-century public toilet. "If I had gone back a thousand years, I would have faced the threat of a Byzantine ass."
Ancient mosaics in paphos archaeological site park (Lin Fangwen/photo)
Where did the crucifixion of Jesus go?
I prefer Kourion, 60 kilometres east of the city, to the hustle and bustle of Paphos. It is also a relic of an ancient Greek city, complete, large, scenic and sparsely visited, worth exploring freely.
Perched on a white limestone cliff, Acropolis can accommodate thousands of people facing the sea, flanked by quiet villages and fields that at one point you can trust that the sea breeze is the same as it was thousands of years ago.
The city not only has shrines, churches, aristocratic residences, and ordinary houses, but also stadiums, squares, fountains and public baths. The low columns of the bathroom steam system lined up like guards, and a dwelling was never cleaned and rebuilt after it was destroyed by an earthquake in the late 4th century, so archaeologists found everything in the dust: a pair of skeletons hugging each other, children who fell from the upper floor into the stables, young parents clinging to their babies, and a mule that was still tethered when he died.
Ancient Roman baths at the archaeological site of Curion (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
From Paphos at the western tip of the island, along the national artery A1 motorway to the east, after passing through Curion and then speeding for more than 70 kilometers, turning from the coast to the mountains, and soon entering the eastern end of the Olympus Mountains that stretch through the middle of the island. At the top of a lone peak that rises hundreds of meters from the ground, deeply hides the country's Orthodox spiritual shrine, the Stavrovouni Monastery.
Founded by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, around 327-329 AD, this monastery is one of the oldest in the world. Legend has it that St. Helena left the crucifixion of Jesus here, but after a long period of war and strife, the cross has long since disappeared, and today only a small fragment remains in stavrovoni's holy relics box.
Monasteries and the famous Greek Mount Athos adhere to similar canons, requiring visitors to dress up neatly, turn in their mobile phone cameras when entering, and strictly prohibiting women from entering—female tourists can only pray in chapels outside the door, for which monks arrange confessionals for female devotees.
At 3 p.m., the monastery opened its doors. The yard is full of fruit trees, and the vine racks that climb full of branches are the last cool of summer. The vegetable patch is planted with potatoes, tomatoes, greens, and a greenhouse covered with plastic sheets. The buildings are mostly a mixture of stone and wood, surrounded by silence, there are no computers or Internet. Older British tourists asked me if I believed in Jesus, and I said I had no faith, and he said that there had been many miracles here and that I had healed a lot of depression. People kissed the idols one by one, and as I stood in front of the sundial, which could still accurately indicate the hour, a heart that could not find its direction felt more and more empty.
Overlooking the Stavovani Monastery at the top of the hill. (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
The tomb of the prophet's comrades-in-arms, the bones of Jesus' disciples
The process of gradually spiraling down the mountain from Stavrovni is like entering the world from the clouds. The lost lamb, like me, failed to get the oracle, returned to the plains and headed for the bustling port of Larnaca.
Larnaca has a huge salt lake with a white hard surface that reflects a dazzling light. The Hala Sultan Tekke sits under tall date palm trees, and the minaret's spire looks like an antenna sticking out of the shade.
In the afternoon, people are sleepy and cats are tired, believers lie on the carpet and snooze, and cats sleep on cold tiles. The Prophet Muhammad was a cat slave, and in order not to disturb the cat who slept on the robe, he even took scissors and cut off the pressed sleeve. It is said that when the prophet died, the family was surrounded by walls, but cat food and water were left behind.
This is where the bones of hala Sultan, the Prophet's loyal comrade-in-arms, were good sisters with Muhammad's mother, and her husband was a staunch follower of the Prophet's southern expedition to the north. In the 7th century, the first Umayyad caliph, Muawiyah, attacked Cyprus, and the elderly Sultan Hala went out with his army, and unfortunately fell off his horse and died while besieging Larnaca, and was buried on the spot. Later, during the Ottoman rule, the mosque was built around the tomb of Hala Sultan.
In the past, the mosque has been a place of worship for the Turkish residents of Cyprus. But with the Turkish invasion 50 years ago, the country was divided in two, and the mosque's location in South Cyprus was dominated by Orthodox Greeks, and the number of believers from the north was no longer as large as before.
Hala_Sultan Mosque (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
If the Hala Sultan Mosque is like an outlier of Southern Cyprus with a northern temperament, then the Church of St. Lazarus succeeds in forging a spiritual connection with the Stavony Monastery, allowing the Greek Orthodox tradition to extend intact from the top of the mountain to the coast.
The central part of Larnaca is like all the old towns in the Mediterranean, lined with shutters, narrow alleys that can't be narrower, and a super high roadside parking difficulty index. The Church of St. Lazarus is located in the central square of the Old Town, surrounded by restaurants and cafes, and only a hundred meters away from the beach and the medieval fortress, which is quite typical of the European town layout.
This church, built in the late 9th century, houses the remains of Lazarus. The saint known throughout history as "Lazarus of Bethany" was a disciple and friend of Jesus, who raised him from the dead in the Gospel of John. Because of this miracle that many people believed in Jesus, Lazarus was persecuted by those in power and fled to Cyprus, where he was appointed the first bishop of Larnaca by the saints Paul and Barnabas. Lazarus lived in Larnaca for 30 years until his second death.
The church was built with heavy stone blocks, and although it was rebuilt several times due to war and fire destruction, its appearance is still that of the early Middle Ages. The massive Baroque Orthodox barrier stands in front of the inner nave and leads to the dome, mostly gilded and shining in the dim light. Next to the barrier is the entrance to the underground, the sarcophagus of Lazarus is very simple, and there is no ornate decoration nearby, an icon, a few candlesticks, and some dried flowers.
Church of St. Lazarus (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
That night, I escaped from orthodox and Islamic admonitions and settled in Ayia Napa, the easternmost tip of the island. The whole city is like a big disco, the streets are full of small advertisements in Russian, and the beautiful Russian girls in various swimsuits are swaying, and the atmosphere of the comprador bourgeoisie is full of extravagance and paradise loss.
The city is of little value, with the most common activities being diving and island hopping. The ancient limestone coast has been eroded out of arched bridges and caves, and slender teenagers like crucian carp crossing the river have jumped down from the bridge. Trekking to the heights of the El Greco Peninsula, the blue lagoon has an unfathomable evil charm, and the sailing catamaran is full of half-naked men and women.
Visitors to Ayia Napa (Lin Fangwen/Photo)
History is like a rock, you knock it out, and the section is engraved with words and symbols from each period, methodically. But walking in Cyprus is like jumping in and out between different faults, time is not linear, and human history does not logically open and close, enveloping tourists in it, and throwing it to the next fault without transition.
It's confusing, but it's also fascinating. If one can try to master and comb through time while traveling, that would be the most magical moment of travel. In the Mediterranean, on an island as carved into the history of civilization, time is not only a traveler's itinerary, but also folded, unfolded, and endlessly laid out between walks, filling all dimensions.
During my journey, I loved both the wilderness of the Creator and Cyprus, which crossed the sea of time with a flat leaf.
Lin Fangwen