Prior to any real knowledge of Cyprus, I definitely wouldn’t have expected it to have as many castles as it does. We started off the day by heading to the Kolossi Castle. The castle itself does not look that appealing, but the rich history we learned about it made it much more interesting. The castle is shaped like a cube and as we entered the inside we could see the sheer size of it. The castle had large open rooms with stone benches by the windows and a place in the wall that had room for a fireplace. After exploring the first and second floors, we eventually reached the top. The roof of the castle had a wide view of the flat land below which during the time period it was built, would be very useful for spotting potential invaders.

After Kolossi Castle, we then traveled to the Ancient City of Kourion. Kourion was on the top of a huge cliff overlooking the ocean. It was truly a beautiful sight. The city itself was uncovered and left with the old floors of the buildings that used to be. On these floors were amazing mosaics made from small stones. It blows my mind how they were able to build them as the technology was obviously nowhere near as complex as it is today. Despite this, the mosaics still look extremely precise. It’s extremely impressive the skills of the workers who built them.

Once we wrapped up at Kourion, we drove down the cliff and ate lunch on the beach at a restaurant. There I was able to get one of my favorite foods, salmon, in a new way that I’ve never had before. It was delicious!

Our last stop of the day was Limassol Castle, located right next to our hotel. The castle had many different rooms showcasing different artifacts from different time periods. The most interesting part about the castle for me was the dungeon area. The dungeons were actually used pretty recently dating back to about the 1960s. Overall, it’s incredible to see how much Cyprus’ history and culture differs from the US’ as you wouldn’t see any type of building that is anywhere near similar to the castles and ancient cities that we saw today.