Saturday, December 30/2017

Vague threats of rain, but the skies seem to be clearing after breakfast so we go on what appears to have become a more or less annual visit to Bellapais on the mountain slopes just east of Kyrenia. The first time J and I went was in 2001, and that time we walked, both ways - although the descent was considerably easier than the climb up. With apologies, this is the history of the village and the abbey ruins, taken from my 2011 journal/blog:

"Belapais was home to an abbey founded [in the thirteenth century] by the Augustinian monks who had been forced to leave Jerusalem when it was conquered by Saladdin. It's a ruin now, but a pretty impressive one, and in the days before spreading villas and suburbs it would have looked down over fruit trees and olive trees and wandering goats to the deep blue Mediterranean, the mountains of Turkey on the other side just visible as they merge with the clouds. We set out to explore the abbey, starting with the church. There's some elaborate carving in the large Gothic space, and big chandeliers. The man in charge shows us an amazingly complex pulpit carved out of a single piece of hardwood. Interestingly, the decline of the abbey began not with the Turkish occupation, but after the Ottomans gave it to the Orthodox in 1570. Its moral decline began somewhat earlier, though. The Augustinians gave way almost immediately to the Norbertines  in the early 13th century, and by the mid sixteenth centry monks had one, or even two, wives and were accepting only their own children as novices. In its glory days, though, it was rich and influential, at times the residence, and then burial place, of kings. The refectory is the best preserved part, 30 metres by 10 metres, with a ceiling much higher than its width. A rose window is at the peak in the  eastern end, and on the north side windows overlook the Mediterranean, darkly blue in the distance beneath. A pulpit at one side would have been used by a monk reading to the others during meal times. The hall is now full of folding chairs, as the space is used on occasion for concerts."

There's always something new to see, though. As we head for the café overlooking the slopes to the sea, we pass a collection of tree carvings that are new and pretty impressive, from turtles to tables. The sun is warm on our backs as we drink Turkish coffee in the sun. There’s a tree to admire as well - a combined mulberry and fig try. It’s obviously old, but we don’t remember seeing it before. And can we get something light for lunch? A small establishment across the road catches our eye promising sandwiches and burgers as well as drinks. Good enough. When we go in we see a young man in what is really nothing more than a passageway between the restaurant and the bar who is making very large, very thin pancakes, folding in herbs and white cheese, and grilling them briefly. Jane orders two, and they arrive each cut in sandwich sized squares, two apiece and delicious. The room too is charming, and would itself have been worth the (surprisingly modest) price of the pancakes. 

A very brief rain as we leave, but back in Kyrenia we can see from the wet streets and puddles that we’ve missed rather more rain here. Chicken curry is one of the choices on our half board menu, and probably the nicest of the evening meals, which have fallen a bit short of the standard of previous years.

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