Today was a day full of sightseeing. We started our day by visiting the ghost town of Famagusta. This is located in the North of Cyprus so it is in the Turkish region. This area has been abandoned since the conflict between the Greeks and Turkish in 1974. This was the only city thus far where we needed to go through security with our passports to enter. We also needed a Turkish Cypriot to be with us while we were in Famagusta. We were able to walk on a road that was recently paved because the town had just reopened a month ago. It was devastating to see how run down the buildings were. I can’t imagine how much money was lost after everything was destroyed. It’s sad to see how many people were kicked out of their houses. When we were there, we saw some people in houses and on the streets, but there was very little life in the town. Some people were there because they had a sentimental relationship to where they lived and others came back because they could just get free housing since no one knows who actually lived there. There were a lot of bright flowers and cactus that made the town look a little less dead. 

We had some free time to walk through the old city and grab lunch. We decided to stop by a small restaurant between the shops. It’s interesting to see how significantly less the prices for meals in Cyprus are versus America. We also stopped into a bakery and I grabbed some sweets to take back home. Before we headed out, we saw the cannonballs at the city ruins. We also walked up a long set of stairs to see the view of the whole town. The city itself doesn’t look too different from the South of Cyprus. We had another beach day today and the water was very clear. We got to swim to the small island and relax on the sand before we headed to the sea caves. The view from the sea caves and above them were beautiful. We got to go into the sea caves, but it was very slippery inside which made it kind of hard to walk around. It was definitely a great way to end our excursion.