Notice how this blog entry started off with a cat? Usually it’s a picture that somehow illustrates what was especially beautiful or interesting or magical about the place. But in this case we are hard pressed to find something better than a cute cat.

It’s not that there was anything WRONG with Limassol per se; there just wasn’t much memorable about our short stop here.

The long stretches of beach around Limassol are a major tourist draw, attracting loads of package tourists for long weekends from chilly places in northern Europe. We do love the beach, as you know, and we can always be happy at a nice resort on a nice stretch of sand, even if there is not much else to do in the area.

When I researched places to stay I was impressed by the stellar reviews of a hotel called Four Seasons (notably not related to the very upscale Canadian chain Four Seasons). Countless reviewers called it the best hotel in Cyprus, some even the best hotel in the world. So we booked the place, even though it was a bit on the pricey side for us. No place better to splurge than at a great beach locale.

But the destination, the hotel, the beach all just screamed out, “Mediocrity!” We did have quite good food here (as elsewhere in Cyprus), but the town lacked the buzz of Nicosia or Kyrenia. The beach at the hotel? It wasn’t BAD, but it wasn’t anything special. We couldn’t bring ourselves to take pictures because nothing inspired you to do so. The water wasn’t beautiful Mediterranean blue. The sand was darker brown than usual. The landscape wasn’t interesting. All just meh.

And the fancy hotel itself? It was OK. I can’t really put my finger on anything wrong. Many features were even quite nice. But I can’t fathom where all those lavish reviews came from. It just didn’t live up to the reviews or the price tag. And oddly, the vast majority of the other guests were Russian. How did everybody in Russia know to come to this blah hotel?

Oh well, we had a decent time anyway. Good food and lots of cats. And I got to use my Russian a little. We just don’t have many exciting pictures to offer.

From Northern Cyprus we made our way inland to the Troodos mountains in the western part of the island. Here we spent a couple days in the charming village of Kalapanayiotis. It’s got a lot of what you’d expect from a hillside Cypriot village: crooked cobbled streets, old Orthodox churches, tiled rooftops, and lots of winding stairs.

A major draw here, compared with other villages in these mountains, was a unique hotel called Casale Panayiotis Traditional Village Hotel & Spa. The hotel is made up up beautifully renovated houses scattered throughout the central part of the village. We had to go up and down the stone staircases and across the cobbled lanes to get from our apartment to the breakfast spot or the reception desk or the swimming pool. It did feel a tiny bit like living in a village.

These mountains are also known for lovely Byzantine churches that were built here in the 11th to 15th centuries. After French Catholics settled in Cyprus and began to run the show, many Orthodox believers and their artists and builders fled up into the mountains where they built these churches and maintained their traditional culture out of reach. The interior walls are painted top to bottom in almost comic-strip fashion with frescoes depicting the lives of Jesus, prophets, and saints, all remarkably preserved for the better part of a millenium.

We didn’t do much more here than hiking in the mountains surrounding this town. We were surprised by just how many types of fruit we saw growing along the pathways: grapes, blackberries, figs, pomegranates, peaches, persimmons. We just kept seeing more and more, as if they were just growing randomly in the wild. Fruit everywhere, often rotting on the ground below the trees.

Not a lot more to report from this quiet spot, except that there were lots of cats here. Lots of cats and lots of fruit. Nothing wrong with that. From here we’ll head to the southern coast of Cyprus to get some beach time. And maybe more cat time.