Lofou, Cyprus

May 1 is a national holiday in Cyprus, and we had originally planned to just relax, walk around the village (they have a 1km waking tour!), and catch up on reading / blogging.

But after chatting at breakfast with the manager, the consensus was that the UNESCO Byzantine-era churches would likely be open. They were clustered around the Tröodos mountains, the nearest about an hour away. In any case, even if they were closed, it would be a nice drive.

The church hours were sporadic, but were generally open between 10am-1pm and then 3-5pm. It was already 10am when we decided to head out, so we quickly got ourselves together and on the road.

The car had about a half tank remaining, and I wasn’t sure how common gas stations would be in the mountains, so we filled up at the first gas station we saw. Because of the holiday it was unattended, but it had self-serve automation. Took a while to figure out the process, but we managed to fill our tank.

First, we visited Timios Stavro in Pelendri. The churches themselves are mostly small, with seating for maybe 30. They are painted floor to ceiling and most still continue as working churches (although some just for special occasions). The churches are from the Byzantine era, between the 11th - 14th centuries.

(I later googled about the Byzantine empire. At its peak, it stretched from Rome to Azerbaijan, around the Mediterranean, and Egypt. Between our Christmas trip to Rome and this trip, we’ll have covered the empire :) )

There was no fee to enter each church, so we just left a small donation at each one.

Next, we drove to Stavros tou Agiasmati in Platanistasa. We were on some very small roads, single lane around blind turns hugging the hills.

Finally, we saw Panagia tou Araka in Lagoudera.

I can’t say enough about offline google maps for driving. It would have been a much more difficult journey without it. We also had to cross-reference the Lonely Planet with the web to find the right places. There’s multiple churches with similar names, so if you search by name in google maps, you’ll likely end up at a different church. So we searched for the town, zoomed in on the map, clicked on the church, and then got directions. In some cases, there was also signage in the town leading to the church too.

On the way back, we stopped in at a random busy roadside restaurant. It was full of local families out celebrating the May 1 holiday. The manager was amazed that we were visiting from Toronto. (He and his family actually lived in TO for a bit). He took us into the kitchen to introduce us to his mom, announcing us as ‘tourists from Toronto!’. It was a buffet lunch, although we focused on the grilled lamb, which was their specialty, and was excellent. The cheesecake was great too.

Drove back to our hotel. We had intentions to do the walking tour of the village, but just as we set out, it started raining. We decided to take a nap to wait it out, but by then we had no get-up-and-go left, so just cleaned up and went down for a drink and then dinner.

Dinner was excellent again. We’ve kept trying to not over order, but everything sounds so good (and is good!)