Years ago, when Christopher and I spent Christmas together in North Cyprus, we visited the spectacular Roman site of Salamis on Christmas Day. There is a set of huge Roman baths, still remarkably intact with a hypocaust system, box-flue tiles in the walls, and plunge pools lined with waterproof cement. There is also a rather […]
There is a very atmospheric ruin of a monastic complex in the village of Bellapais, on the mountainside overlooking Kyrenia. The village itself is rather touristy – it has both the abbey ruin and the erstwhile house of Lawrence Durrell to attract the coach parties. But the abbey itself is worth a visit – there […]
As with many places in the Mediterranean, there were plenty of stray dogs in North Cyprus. It was interesting to see though, that the ones in Kyrenia at least had been “adopted” by an animal welfare charity – they are tagged, neutered, innoculated, de-wormed, and then released back on to the streets where both the […]
Even Mykonos wasn’t all bars and tourist traps. If you looked hard enough, there were faint signs of the small sleepy fishing village that it must have been before the cosmopolitan jet-set and the party-goers discovered it. This row of windmills is the iconic “picture postcard” view of Mykonos, and was between the harbour and […]
As I mentioned, the open-air museum island of Delos is only reachable by ferry from the neighboring island of Mykonos. It really is the archaeological highlight of the Cyclades, and even some of the cruise-ship passengers were persuaded to forgo the hedonistic delights of Mykonos Town, Paradise Beach, and the allegedly even better Super Paradise […]
We started out on Santorini, where the highlight for me was our visit to the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri, which is very reminiscent in many ways of Pompeii. The town was completely destroyed and buried under 60m of ash when the volcano of Thera blew its top (in 1500BC if you ask an archaeologist, […]
I got home from work this afternoon to find a parcel waiting for me – the results of my glass fusing. I’m very pleased with the three bowls I made. The first two are pretty much as I had imagined them. The last one, which looked rather unpromising in its raw state, has come out […]
It’s not got above freezing for several days. My garden and drive face almost due North, and the thin covering of snow that fell overnight on Friday hasn’t melted – in fact, it’s frozen solid. At least I can tell that the insulation in my loft is doing its job, as my roof is still […]
A few months ago I went on a glass fusing and slumping course in London. I finally picked up the resulting glassware when I visited my parents on the way back from my Christmas holiday. I was very pleased indeed with the results – all the pieces had come out much better than I had […]
Just outside the town of Kyrenia is rather spectacular mountain range, called the “Five Finger Mountains” after the mountain pictured above, which from some angles looks remarkably like a palm and upraised fingers. I’m sure I can count more than five finger-like outcrops though! The range shelters a number of small abandoned Greek Orthodox churches […]
