After all the traveling from Pittsburgh, to DC, to Munich we are finally in Cyprus! We arrived about mid afternoon yesterday and got some time to settle in and explore some of the Marina. We all got dinner and walked a bit down the boardwalk. Today was our first day exploring Limassol. Everything here is absolutely gorgeous! We went to Kourion, the Kolossi Castle and spent some time at the Limassol Marina and Old City and ended the day with a group dinner.
In Kourion, we saw the ancient ruins of Kourion which we learned was a bath house. A quick run down of how the bath house works goes like this: there were different chambers that people could go to and the baths ranged from cold to warm to hot. The cold was room temperature as there was no way to make the water cold at that time but the hot water was made hot by elevating the floor and pumping hot air under the floor to heat the water. The fact that people had created a system like that so long ago astounds me. Next we went to the amphitheater and the view was absolutely stunning. The amphitheater was originally used by the Greeks for entertainment but was later remolded by the Romans for fighting entertainment. The amphitheater was built on a natural slope so that the sound would travel easily and I found it interesting that they did that.
Next, we went to Kolossi Castle and learned about carob. Our tour guide explained how carob seeds were turned into what we know as the karat or carat. A basic explanation is that gold was weighed in terms of carob seeds (24 carob seeds = 1 carat) and thats how they measured gold. We went inside of the castle and learned about how the rooms were structured and that there were no metals used at all to build the castle. The main floor had two rooms that faced North and South and the second floor had rooms that faced East and West. The castle also had a basement that was used to store weapons and ammunition. The roof had an amazing view and we learned that there were small slits that were used for archers to keep their bow and arrows to fight off invaders.
Our amazing tour guide gave us a run down of the history and told us the stories behind each detail that Cyprus has. She told us how wine was produced and it was a big export that Cyprus produced, she told us about different plants (carob, sugarcane, olives, citrus, etc) and when they blossomed and ripened throughout the year, and more! Two things that stood out to me were the cats and the water shortage. Everywhere we went, we saw cats. It is said that Cyprus used to have a really bad snake infestation and when Queen Helen went to Cyprus, she noticed it. The second time that she went to Cyprus, she brought back a boat full of cats to get rid of the snakes. There are so many cats everywhere and it turns out that there is even a church that takes care and feeds hundred of cats as well! Going back to the water shortage, we learned that global warming and climate change has effected Cyprus deeply. It hailed today and it was unusual weather for Cyprus. The seasons were shifting and the summers were getting hotter and the winters less rainy-er. This caused for the mountain water storages to become less than half of what they used to be which is a problem because these water storages are used during the summer for the agriculture. This is a growing problem for Cyprus and even locals are concerned. Hopefully there are ways for them to get more water for the summer.
Overall, today was a full packed day and I learned a lot of information. I am excited for tomorrow and am looking forward to more sight-seeing!