Cyprus | Paphos | Moon | Aphrodite

Carnival begins in Venice on Jan. 27 but people start celebrating early. When I saw the first people in masks in Campo St. Bartholomew I hurried back to my hotel room and booked the next flight to Athens via Istanbul. Took the 7:32 am water bus to the airport the next morning. The Visa Flap with Turkey is over. All they did was raise the prices. Before an electronic visa was $20; now they are $70. I had a five hour layover in Istanbul so I took the Metro downtown to change money. The exchange rates in Venice are nothing short of larcenous. On Divan Yolu in Istanbul there are at least a dozen currency exchanges all competing against one another. Asking at half a dozen places the best offer I got for $1000 was 810 Euros. This was very close to the official exchange rate on the internet. The best offer I had in Venice was 750 Euros for $1000. And in Venice you have to present your passport and fill out a form which even asks for your address in the States. Like I have an address in the States! On Divan Yolu, of course, no one asks to see anything but your money.

I was going to stroll around the Sultanahmet area for awhile, but it was raining and a chill wind was blowing off the Sea of Marmara. I was wearing only a Mongolian cashmere sweater and no hat. So I took the Metro back to the airport and spent the rest of the layover in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, which as business lounges go is quite luxurious. Unlimited baklava! Actually I am flying economy, since on Turkish Airlines you can buy an exit row seat and the extra space was all I needed. But I am a Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Elite Gold Card holder so I get to use the Business Lounge even when flying economy. This is just one of the perks. Also priority check-in, priority boarding, and in Istanbul a special express lane through immigration, which is really handy. I have flown over 200,000 miles on Turkish Airlines the last four years, which is how I got the Gold Card. Those round-trip Ulaanbaatar-Istanbul miles—the equivalent of half-way around the world—add up fast.

Arrived in Athens around 9:00 pm local time. My portmanteau came out first on the luggage carousel—another Gold Card perk!—and I caught the Metro downtown.  Back once again at my Favorite Hotel literally in the shadow of the Acropolis. This place is a bit of a mystery. I would proffer that it was the best location of any hotel in Athens. The back entrance to the Acropolis is only a couple hundred feet away. A few hundred feet in the opposite direction is a square lined with restaurants. Monastery Square, a big shopping hub, is only a ten minute walk away. But this hotel always seems to have rooms. Admittedly the place is a bit down at the heels and the rooms are tiny. Couples might find them a bit cramped, unless they intend to spend their entire stay in bed, but for misanthropes like myself there is no problem. And the bathroom is even tinier; it also serves as a shower. There is a shower drain in the floor. But the luggage platform and the dresser have gorgeous white marble tops that many people would die for. I like to think it is the same marble they used for the Parthenon.

Next morning I took the Metro back out to the airport and caught the flight to Cyprus. In Larnaka flowers are in bloom, there are oranges and lemons on the trees, and the famous pink flamingos are back in the lake by the side of the road from the airport. I stopped by my Armenian tailor to have new shirts made. He has my measurements on file but he took them again to see if there were any changes. It turns out my waistline is four inches less than three years ago. And I have been consciously eating more in an attempt to keep my weight up to fighting trim. To no avail, it appears. It is a constant struggle to keep body and soul together. 

The following morning I took the bus to Paphos, at the western end of Cyprus Island. Paphos is, of course, the birthplace of Aphrodite. While in Paphos I hope to celebrate the Super Blue Full Blood Moon happening on January 31. Fasten your seat belts, people, it’s going to be a wild ride!

My hotel in Paphos

Cyprus | Paphos | St. Paul’s Pillar

After an enlightening few days at We Crociferi in Venice I wandered on to Athens, Crete,  and Rhodes, before finally washing up in Larnaca, Cyprus.

 Cyprus (click on iamges for enlargements)

 

Statue of my man Xeno in Larnaca

After spending a day Getting Back In Touch With My Inner Stoic—as you probably know, Larnaca (then Kition) was the birthplace of the Greek philosopher Zeno (c.352 BC–c.255 BC), founder of Stoicism—I moved on to Paphos, at the western end of Cyprus Island. According to legend Aphrodite was born just up the coast from Paphos and I was eager to see her birthplace, but first I wandered by the church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa to see St. Paul’s Pillar.

Alleged route of Paul and Barnabas through Cyprus. This assumes they used roads built by the Romans to get from Salamis to Paphos. Their itinerary is not detailed in the Bible. 

Paul—he of Road To Damascus fame—and his sidekick Barnabas arrived on Cyprus in  45 or 46 AD, landing at Salamis, Barnabas’s birthplace. According to legend, they then proceeded to Kition, current-day Larnaca, where They Supposedly Met With Lazarus, who had washed up in Larnaca after Jesus of Nazareth, according to the Bible, had raised him from the dead. From Kition they moved along the coast to Paphos, where Paul was supposedly tied to a pillar and whipped for trying to preach Christianity to the locals. You will recall from your Bible studies that he mentions being whipped in Corinthians 2 11:24: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one,” but he does not say where. The pillar that Paul was tied to when he was whipped in Paphos—at least according to legend—still stands in front of the church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa.

 

 St. Paul’s Pillar (click on photos for enlargements)

 The Church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa, dating to about the fifteen century

 The church of Panagia Chrysopolitissa was built of the site of a much larger fourth century basilica. The columns of the old basilica can be seen here. This church was destroyed or heavily damaged by Arabs who invaded Cyprus in the eighth century. The graffiti that they carved on some of the columns can still be seen. 

Paul has of course gotten a lot of Bad Press lately:

“So because the Apostle Paul was a homophobic sexually insecure douchebag and authored the majority of the New Testament people are bound by his interpretation of bigoted hatred in order to fulfill the edict to live “‘good christian lives’”.

Aother Modern Commentator  considers him an insufferably misogynistic blowhard and gasbag who perverted the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. However, there is also the school of thought that maintains he was a secret Gnostic and that the books in the Bible which have given him such a bad name (especially Timothy II) are actually forgeries. For more on this tantalizing theory see Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians. For a debate of these various issues see Paul Behaving Badly: Was the Apostle a Racist, Chauvinist Jerk? If you want a novelistic treatment of Paphos at the time of Paul’s visit to the city see The Rose of Venus. The book is narrated by a follower of Aphrodite. Paul makes an appearance in the book and tries to convert the narrator to Christianity, but he, the narrator, is not convinced and remains true to the cult of Aphrodite to the end of his life.  Read the book to find out why.

Cyprus | Paphos | Roman Mosaics

In 45 a.d. the Apostle Paul, he of Road to Damascus fame, and Barnabas, later Saint Barnabas, visited Larnaca and appointed Lazarus as the first Christian bishop of Cyprus. From Larnaca Paul and Barnabas proceeded along the southern coast to Paphos, on the western end of Cyprus Island. I decided to follow in their footsteps.  First I took the bus forty miles to Limmasol, where as most of you will recall Richard the Lion Heart of England married Berengaria of Navarre on May 12, 1191, and there transferred to a bus going another forty miles to Paphos. By noon I was comfortably ensconced in the Kiniras Guesthouse in Upper Paphos.  

 Guesthouse where I am staying in Paphos (click on photos for enlargements)

Beefcake dished up at the entrance to the guesthouse restaurant

Patio dining room of the restaurant

 Statue in the restaurant of woman displaying her delectable treats

Statue in restaurant of three young women from the Isle of Lesbos.

After a couple of Cyprus coffee bracers I took the bus two miles or so to Nea Paphos, also known as Katos Paphos, which fronts on the sea. From 58 b.c. to 330 a.d. Cyprus was part of the Roman Empire and much of the time Nea Paphos served as the capital of Cyprus and the residence of the Roman proconsul to the island. The proconsul and other important Romans lived in magnificent mansions, many of which had spectacular mosaic floors. Some of the floors have survived to the present day and are now among the main tourist attractions in Paphos. Three of the mansions are located in what is now the Paphos Archeological Park. The first one I visited was the House of Aion, believed to have been built in the early fourth century. 

 Mosaic floor in the House of Aion

Detail of mosaic floor in the House of Aion

 Detail of mosaic floor in the House of Aion

 Mosaic floor in the House of Aion

 Detail of mosaic floor in the House of Aion

 Near the mansions wildflowers grow in profusion

More wildflowers

Still more wildflowers

That evening I had dinner in the restaurant of the Kiniras Guesthouse. The house wine came in an unlabeled bottle. Turns out it was made by the father of the owner of the guesthouse from indigenous Ophalmo grapes. The father owns a small vineyard in the mountains north of Limmasol. I ordered only a glass but the server (who was also the cook) put a bottle on my table and told me to help myself if I wanted more. I can in all honesty say it was one of the best wines I have ever drank. 

Mixed Grill at the Kiniras Guesthouse