Day trip to Kyrenia, North Cyprus

 I withdraw some Turkish lira from an ATM and took a bus to make a day trip to Kyrenia (Turkish: Girne), a city on the northern coast of Cyprus, and historic harbour and castle, and under the control of Northern Cyprus. I was so happy to see its green mountain range and missed hiking back home. This town reminds me of Colorado but much warmer and with ocean.

I visited the Kyrenia Castle next to the harbor probably built by the Byzantines in the 7th century. “Richard the Lionheart conquered it (and the rest of Cyprus) in 1191 on his way to Jerusalem, only to lose it to the Lusignans, the Venetian, the Ottomans and eventually the British, who used it as a prison.” In the Castle, there is the Shipwreck Museum that houses the preserved wreck of a wooden merchant ship dated 306 BC, found in 1967 off the coast of Kyrenia. The cargo of 400 amphorae (clay jugs) filled with olives and almonds was still intact. The drawing of the ship is now on the Cyprus versions of the Euro 50, 20 and 10 cent coins.

I then strolled down the Old Harbor, saw the Chain Tower (Venetians would raise a chain between the tower and a fortress to block the entrance), checked out some churches anr mosques, attempted to walk to Bellapais Monastery but turned back due to heat, then had a late lunch near the bus station before heading back my hostel.