Lefkara

 

13-Sep-2007

Niki's parents decided to take us to a villiage called Lefkara which is about a 45 minute drive from Nicosia up in the mountains. Lefkara is famous for its lace work, and silver smiths. We wondered the streets where the lace shops are, and saw the women sitting outside their shops making the artefacts that you could purchace inside. Even though it was obvious that the streets were specifically set up for the tourists, at least you knew that the goods were made locally and not in china. The lace weaving skills are still apparently passed down from mother to daughter, and the villiage survives almost solely on the revenue generated by the lace weavers and silver smiths in the region.

The only other thing in the town is the 'Fatsa' wax museum that uses wax figurines to show aspects of the history of cyprus.

 

After this we went to Zigi to a "Psarotaverna" (literally fish tavern) for lunch. Niki's father explained to us that the word "Zigi" is greek for scales (the type you use to weigh things), and that the only reason the town existed at all was because there was a set of scales there that would be used to weigh carobs from the plantations before they were shipped out for export, but since the war in 1974, there was a need to establish more towns to relocate the 200,000 refugees, and Zigi has grown significantly, and now is part of the booming tourist industry with Psarotaverna's everywhere, and appropriate tourist pricing.

Later that night, Niki's sister Elena, took us into the city to the Marco Polo bar where there is a cuban band playing every night, and some pretty good salsa dancers. We had a good time, met some of Elena friends, and salsad til about 1:30 am.

While we were there we met an Australian girl who lived in Richmond, Melbourne (not far from where we live). Her parents are cypriot and she was visiting cyprus for the first time in 20 years. She was complaining that there was nothing uniquely cypriot that she could take her english friends to see, and cited the cuban salsa band as a case in point of a distinct lack of cypriot identity. I told her to show them the villiages, she agreed. What I forgot to say is that you can always take them to a traditional cypriot taverna.