We visited our friends Chris & Jennifer in Cyprus over New Year’s, and got to see quite a lot of the country.

Similar to Turkey, Cyprus is a country that has been a crossroads of the world for a long time. There’s tons of old buildings, churches, archeological sites, and ephemera of many different eras. One of the most interesting things about it is that Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, between the Republic of Cyprus and the (unofficial) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Essentially, after getting a drink at a bar called the Berlin Wall, you can walk through a UN “Green Zone”, where nobody lives, and be in a country that takes different money and speaks a different language. Though the buildings look identical, because they were all built in the 1600s, and the whole capital is surrounded by a wall built to protect the city from a siege by the Ottoman Empire. (Unsuccessfully).

We spent a lot of time in Aphrodite Hills, where the Cult of Aphrodite was started, and saw some archeological exhibits in Paphos and Limasol, and finished our trip spending a few days in Nicosia and Northern Cyprus.

The enviro in me loves that solar-powered water heaters are a thing in that region of the world. Fascinating concept.