Saturday 4-12-04

Barnabas (Niki's father) was working in the morning so Niki, Maria (Niki's mother), Elena (Niki's sister) and me went to the Arch bishops Palace. There's a huge statue of the Arch Bishop Makarios (circa 1970's, more about Makarios in another post).



There was an ancient Greek orthodox church there with an ornately decorated alter & a plethora of wall paintings depicting various biblical & other scenes (this was the church in which both my mother's sisters got married in - Niki). Of course we weren't allowed to take photos inside the church, but of course there was a stall just outside the church selling postcards with pictures from the church.
There was also a museum depicting the sacred art throughout the Byzantine era, the museum had works from as early as the 9th century, and I think the virgin with child has to be by far the most painted scene in all of history. After the museum, we decided to drop in on Andonia (one of Niki's aunties) initially for coffee, but after being forced to eat delicious Greek sweets (again), she convinced us to stay for lunch. Banos (Andonia's husband) had some wine that had been brewed in the mountains in the traditional way, it was quite sweet, and played with the tongue in an unusual way, but was still quite nice. In the evening we went out to a taverna for dinner. In the taverna's there is no set menu, the only choice you have is what you want to drink. Greek Taverna's in Melbourne use the no menu idea to enable them to practice creative pricing scheme's on the sound principle that if you don't have a menu you don't know how much you're meal should cost at the end of the night. Not so in the tavernas in Cyprus, it is a set price per person, £6 (AUD$18) which they were complaining was a little bit expensive. In comparison, there is no way in hell of getting out of a Greek taverna in Melbourne for under AUD$30 per person.The meal was fantastic, but I think the best thing about the meal was the wine brewed in Cyprus from old grape vines. I'm no longer worried about fitting into the economy class plane seat..... with all the weight we're putting on, it'll be an effort just to squeeze in the door of the plane.