We have finally spent a full day exploring Cyprus. We had wonderful meals, starting off with a classic European breakfast, and then we had delicious traditional Cyprus food. It made me want to stay in Cyprus forever. The orange juice is particularly amazing, as it just tastes incredibly fresh.

Throughout the day, we explored the Old City and the New City in Nicosia on tours. We had our New City tour first, in which we learned about all of the popular places to which mostly college students and other similarly aged people go. The buildings were also quite nice with all of them working in a lot of enjoyable green space. However, in our tour through the Old City, we saw wonderful architecture and learned about hundreds of years of history of Cyprus.

All of the buildings were a mix of Arte Nouveau, traditional Cyprian building styles, ancient Venetian styles, Byzantine styles, Arabic flair, as well as a smattering of other styles. All except for the the traditional Cyprian styles were brought from outside invaders, and they blended together incredibly nicely. The ancient Venetian styles came from when Venice was a Mediterranean superpower and owned Cyprus to open the door to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Arabic flair was brought by the Ottomans after they invaded, and the Arte Nouveau was brought by the English when they owned Cyprus. The Byzantine styles were most evident on the churches, as many Catholic churches wanted to pull ideas from the original Catholic empire. However, my favorite pieces of architecture were ones that added in extra styles that seem almost anachronistic in the Old City. The presidential palace is a beautiful building that blends all of the aforementioned styles into one grand building, mostly relying on Arte Nouveau and the styles of 20th-century Britain, but still incorporating them. However, despite the styles, the doors are Art Deco, breaking a unified architectural style. There were also some newer buildings built in a Neoclassical style, standing out among the rest of the buildings.

Overall, the Old City in Nicosia is my favorite part of Cyprus, but all of the food and the sights are amazing. I was even able to pet some of the stray cats that live within Nicosia.