After a very long, exhausting final day in Nicosia yesterday, today we departed and came to Limassol, which is in the South Coast of Cyprus, which was about 1.5 hours away. We started off in Kourion which is an archaeological site a couple of minutes from Limassol. It was fascinating and just thinking about the architectural feat of it all still shocks me. The things these people were able to accomplish in 1, 2, 3 Century AD and even before is unfathomable. I found it very interesting that the theater is used for performances to this day, mainly in the Summer, although, most of the theater standing today is a reconstruction (due to earthquake damage). For example, actors would perform classic greek stories, like tragedies. It was really cool to go to the bottom of the theater and shout, sing, clap, etc., and hear the echo all around you, due to the natural projection caused purposefully by the architecture, kind of like a microphone. Not to mention, Kourion also gave us beautiful sea views, as partially seen by the photo below, but it doesn’t really do the scenery justice in this case.

After the tour of Kourion Archaeological site, we set off for a quick drive to home base for the rest of the trip — Limassol. We started out in Old Port for some lunch and shopping, and after, we went on a tour of Limassol Castle. Here, I learned that ceramic pottery didn’t start to be used until the Byzantine era in Cyprus. I know this sounds insignificant but it was quite interesting to me. At the end of the tour, we went to the top of the castle and got a beautiful view of the city and Mediterranean Sea, where we played a version of a sing-songy recess game called “Stella-Ella-Ola” but where I’m from, it’s called “Slap-Dilly-Oso.” It was a cute, fun, and random bonding moment for the group, and maybe a new occurrence for the castle, but who knows, perhaps not… the castle is quite old (Very, very old; hundreds upon hundreds of years old), so if I were a betting woman, I’d say some sort of harmless tomfoolery as aforementioned has occurred to some extent. I am very excited to get to explore more of the city, the beach, and the culture here in Limassol!