(Guest Post by Basil-Anne Stackpole)
In between our time on site, at Terra Ombra, or on field trips, a great deal of the day is our own to enjoy in the city of Larnaca. We typically leave site around noon, however a particularly nasty heat wave has been forcing us to leave earlier and earlier. In the van on the way to the apartments we usually reach a consensus of whether it’s a beach day or a nap day. On the days when we don’t all immediately retreat to the air conditioning and a nap a contingent of us will trek the three blocks to the beach. Many of us have never swum in water so clear, and even though we have now been here three weeks and made many beach trips we still marvel at the clearness and lack of waves when we’re wading out.
The beach is not the only spot for afternoon and weekend exploration. I (as well as several others) have started taking long evening walks around Larnaca before the sun sets. On one of these excursions I was walking along the seawall when I looked over and saw a huge leatherback sea turtle! I had no idea sea turtles even lived in the Mediterranean but I’ve now seen three. Several other of the Reedies here have also snatched a glance at a turtle. On another walk I took the opportunity to explore Larnaca castle, a Medieval fort that sits on the beach dividing the public beach from the sea wall.
The fort was converted into a prison by the British during their occupation of the island, and the gallows which were used to execute prisoners are still on prominent display. The fort also has a very small museum which houses, among other things, some Medieval pottery, Byzantine wall paintings, some early Christian artifacts, and some older pictures of the fort. The fort also still has cannons that I believe are left over from the Ottoman period.
A few other spots in Larnaca favored by the Reedies here are “Fresh Juice” and “Berezka.” “Fresh Juice” is the intuitively named juice and smoothie place down the street from our apartments where, for three euros you can get any three fresh fruits and some ice blended up into a delicious smoothie. After several site days we all piled into the tiny storefront, still covered in dirt to obtain delicious sustenance before we could possibly do anything else.
“Berezka” is a Russian deli/store right across the street from our apartments where we will frequently go to grab a snack to supplement our dinner. While most of our groceries are obtained from the Super Discount, me or Anna (who I’m rooming with) will often dash out at the eleventh hour to obtain extra eggs or a dessert. This past week we had more free time in Larnaca than usual. The British Base authority changed up their shooting schedule last minute and we had to miss a week of excavating. We of course still got work done by taking pottery washing trips to Terra Ombra and moving our weekend field trips to weekdays so that we could work through the weekends, but everyone was glad to finally get back up to site today [Sat. 7/21]. With only a week left in Larnaca we’re all taken aback by how fast the trip has flown by.