Kourion, Cyprus - site and museum.

The morning started with a run to Papa's to replace the gas cylinder for the fireplace. Taking advantage of Nicola and Dave here to do the heavy lifting. Then I went to the bank and Nic and Dave the thrift stores.

Cat who hangs out a the church, in mid meow

Pissouri is about half an hour from a hospital and the Residents Association has Volunteer First Responders to get to you faster in an emergency.

Coffee and backgammon in the sun, in the square.

Nicola suggested a coffee in the square before we embarked on our next site visit. We were happy to discover that The Platea Restaurant had a coffee machine and made great Lattes. The square is beginning to wake up after it's winter hibernation and tables are out in the sun.

Dave has found some examples of why Christine's spelling would fit right in here.

Of to tour Kourion and Nic and Dave were suitably impressed.

Dave dubbed it "Grown up Disneyland". Photo by Nicola.

I am so glad that they are "into" this as much as I am (Dave may be more).

The "Earthquake House" is interesting because you can walk in and out of the rooms, wander all over the area, no restrictions, but there is no "Wow", no pillars, no mosaics. The "Wow" came later at the museum when we realized why this was such an important part of the tour.

More plants had come into flower since I was last there

and the Cyclamen are even more abundant.

For about an hour this Para-glider played the updrafts from the cliffs and soared back and forth

above the beach, the fields and the Roman ruins. What a view he must have had.

I had been planning on sitting and sketching while Nic and Dave explored

but found that seeing it with someone else

meant that I focused on different things.

Like the crooked Olive tree. Photo by Dave.

Like the amazing colours

in the marble columns

and

the Corinthian column tops, most of which were on the ground.

A huge Lavender bush in the parking lot.

Back in the car we debated - lunch then museum vs museum then lunch - and opted for shared protein bars and

 after a fund drive on narrow, winding roads to the village of Episkopi, we found the Kourion Museum.

In the former house of the University of Pennsylvania, director, who headed much of the excavation, is 2 rooms of finds.

Statues, urns, pots,

small figures in metal and 

terra cotta, gold and silver jewelry (pairs of ear rings! Pairs! I can't keep a pair of ear rings in my lifetime let alone thousands of years)

Can you imagine how exciting it would be to uncover these - unbroken

and beautifully decorated.

For me the most powerful exhibit was of the excavations of the Earthquake house. The earthquake had destroyed it and when they excavated they found everything as it would have been on that day in approx 400 BC.

There were the skeletal remains of a girl and a mule in the stable area

In another room they found the remains of a 25 year old male, sheltering a 19 year old female, cradling an 18mnth old child.

On the way home we took a side trip and found an empty beach (restaurant closed) which we walked for a while

picking up different coloured stones. Some of them looked like marble and we wondered if there is marble on Cyprus or if Kourion's marble had to come from Italy. Googling I found that a small amount of marble is mined on Cyprus. Maybe these stones are marble.

We wanted to have lunch at Two Friends Taverna but it was closed so we went to Hani, which had also been recommended to me. The above photo is what was served with the meal.

Nicola had the Moussaka. Dave had Spaghetti Bolonaise and I had sheep liver, onion and red wine stew (neither of which were particularly photogenic but were delicious)

By the time we finished "lunch" it was 5pm. A full, fun, day that started with clear blue skies and ended with drizzle and scary dark clouds.