SHOULD YOU GO TO SALAMIS IN NORTH CYPRUS?

SALAMIS IS THE ANCIENT ROMAN CITY, NEAR FAMAGUSTA IN NORTH CYPRUS

http://www.cypnet.co.uk/ncyprus/city/famagusta/salamis/

If you are in that area, yes you should go and walk round the site which is about 1 sq mile, just near the sea.

It was very hot when we arrived, by taxi from the hotel. We asked him to come back for us in about one and a half hours.

Surprisingly, there is a very small building where you buy tickets to go in, with little information.  It is annoying to know now that there is a free guide service, to point out the mosaics for instance.  The ticket seller did not tell us this.

MOSAICS

Well there are some, but we did not find any!  The whole site is very much in ‘ruins’ still, with masses of work needed to be done, but no money to do it.

I was interested to see pictures on a sign board of some of the birds that visit, and also the little red tulips that apparently grow there.

Red tulips much like the ones I grow back in the UK – same shape but mine are yellow!

The walk round was difficult going, no proper paths, and lots of stones to stumble over.  The theatre was spectacular though.

Ray fulfilled an ambition to climb up and sit on one of the rows, and I had to stand on the stage area to speak in a normal voice, so that he could test the acoustics.  They are good, apparently.

It was quite possible to spend longer than the time we had, walking further to the edge of the ruins, but we had to turn back after our hour and a half.

SNAILS

On the walk back, I was intrigued to see lots of white blobs on some of the green shrubs.

Looking more closely, I saw they were clusters of pure white snails.  Quite unlike our own dear English snails (curses be upon them).

These white snails looked as if they never moved, maybe they stirred themselves at night, to go and eat.

 

WE VISITED THE ISTANBUL MUSEUM OF ANCIENT ORIENT

This is a great museum to visit, if you are in Istanbul.   It is near the Topkapi Palace, on the left if you are walking towards it.

We went into the museum, thinking it was the Museum of Archaeology, because there are three museums on the same site.

This is what the website says about it:

The Ancient Orient Museum consists of the sections of Pre-Islamic Arabian Art, Egypt Collection, Mesopotamia Collection, Anatolia Collection, Urartu Collection and Cuneiform Documents, arranged according to regions; the cultures of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia have been presented in historical order.

There is a small cafe outdoors, under trees, a great place for a coffee after visiting the collection. It has an attendant friendly ginger cat.

The Archaeology Museum was shrouded in wraps, and most of it is closed, which is a pity.  It has a vast collection, part of it described here:

After its opening on June 13, 1891, the Archaeological Museum expanded its collection rapidly. Currently, on the ground floor of the Archaeological Museum, sculptures from the Ancient Age from the Archaic Era to the Roman Era may be seen on the right side, and world wide famous unique artifacts such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, the Sarcophagus of Crying Women and the Sarcophagus of Tabnit that came from the Royal Necropolis in Sidon on the left side. On the upper floor of the two-storey building, there are the Treasury section, the Non-Islamic and Islamic Coin Cabinets and the Library.

Here are some photos which I took