Monday 14th May

After a very spartan breakfast in the room we walked down the road to the tour pick up point. One thing the Cypriots all seem to be is punctual & at 8am 3 buses turned up & we joined ours to go to the bus station. Here we divided into 2 groups, one for Russian speakers & the other for English speakers. After some careful consideration we joined the latter group as we knew our Russian was pretty poor.

The bus took off & picked up a further motley group of English tourists & we were on our way out to the Troodus mountains.

As a tour it was unbelievable value at €20 a head as we covered 240km of mainly tortuous roads through a range of country sides, Monasteries & villages, climbing to 2000m at one point, in pouring rain ending in the warmth of Pafos again at 5.15.

We saw 3 major monasteries which were incredibly well endowed with amazing collections of icons & relics but all are gradually losing monks due to ageing & lack of recruits. The first had one monk who is the abbot and the richest has but 20. At Kykkos Monastery they hold a picture of the Virgin Mary apparently painted by Luke the Apostle & they have just built a chapel on the peak above the monastery & by chance Jane & I saw its interior as the cleaner had the door open. The art work is stunning if not quite to our taste & it is due to be opened formally in August 2018.

We also saw where the first president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios's heart has been interred there. The rest of him is Nicossia. He came from a small village that we passed through today, although we didn't visit his house.

The mountains are covered in Cyprus pines, Cedars & a local form of oak tree & are the home of wild sheep although we didn't see any. On the lower slopes grape vines, cherries & olives are cultivated but the soil is poor & life must be pretty tough for the locals.

On balance the villages were somewhat disappointing as many had been damaged by an earthquake in the 1950s but the one where we had lunch reminded us very much of those in parts of Spain & Portugal.

After a hard day's touring we bought some food & after eating it retired for a well earned rest.