yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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Well another year has passed us by and I’m a year older but none the wiser. Its time for me to go on my travels again. Last year we went to Egypt and Jordan to visit Ozymandias, King of Kings. This time we’re off to visit Cyprus the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, for a couple of weeks to absorb some sunshine, to unwind, and have a look at some of the antiquities. Later this month is the longest day, so we’re nearly at the top of the year and then it’ll be downhill to Christmas again and the shooting season.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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Mark P
Administrator
Reged: Jun 21 2005
Posts: 1018
Loc: Arizona
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Have fun and remember the camera. Pictures are often as close as us Americans get to these far off places. What passes for "holiday" over here is quite short in comparison.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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How would you like to get up in the morning to a view like this?
This is the view that the owner of a roman villa had about two thousand years ago. not withstanding any modern stuff down there. We stood gazing out and I thought how good it felt to be there.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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this is the roman amphitheatre next to the roman villa. The remains of which is covered by the tent type covering in the top left. The wife is over the other side of the seating area wearing the pink top.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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this is one of the mosaic floors from inside the villa. the mosaics were soft in colour contrast as if there was a fine film of dust on them. Another thing of interest to me was that there were still domestic drain pipe sections in the foundations of the buildings in the same place that they were put all those thousands of years ago.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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DanS
Crown Killer
Reged: Sep 14 2003
Posts: 2234
Loc: St. Louis, MO
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I never appreciated that kind of thing when younger, Now it fascinates me. Someday, I'll travel abroad again, and visit some of those places.
BTW, looks like a tough crowd. That young lady doesn't seem to have much of an audience other than your wife and those two fellows. 
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If it's not worth doing, then it's certainly not worth doing right.
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clemthegem
Dervish
Reged: Feb 15 2005
Posts: 450
Loc: Laurieton,NSW, Australia
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Your wife looks familiar!.
CLEM
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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That's the one. Two arms,two legs a blob bit on the top and a few other parts. Yep looks familiar to me also.
She's been everywhere man. You might have seen her on a nudist beach somewhere.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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Another mosaic from the Roman villa. They look almost like a fabric carpets but they are made from thousands of little bits of ceramic tile in varying shades of colour. When you think about the logistics of doing a job like this, there must have been a whole industry to support the manufacture of stuff like this.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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Willem
Whirling Dervish
Reged: Feb 10 2008
Posts: 58
Loc: Illinois
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This stuff fascinates me too. I was fortunate enough to stop in Babylon for about a week after the invasion of Iraq. Got to see the ancient ruins and where the hanging gardens once were. Sadaam had been trying to build the ancient ruins back, as to fulfill the prophesy in the Koran and the Bible...I guess he failed. haha. If I figure out how to post some pictures I'll see what I can come up with out of my sandy pictures.
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Peace...Through Fire Superiority.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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Hunt out those pics Willem. I'd love to see them.
another of the mosaics from the Roman villa. Again the colour contrasts of the differing parts are soft and not aggressive.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
Edited by yehti (Sat Aug 02 2008 12:36 PM)
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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This household drainage at the ruins of the roman villa is 1500 >> 2000 years old !! We saw similar drains in the ruins at Ephesus in Turkey.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
Edited by yehti (Sat Aug 02 2008 12:57 PM)
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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I noticed that there were a lot of different soil colours across various parts of the Island. Here is a pic of a mountain that was different colours of blue and green.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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Mark P
Administrator
Reged: Jun 21 2005
Posts: 1018
Loc: Arizona
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I love the pictures Yehti. Reminds me that I don't get out enough.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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I'm a mechanical engineer by trade and have no appreciation of light and shade as an artist would have but I have noticed that the colours of the land can change greatly with the light and the time of day especially in the mountains. I just took pictures of things that looked odd / strange or pretty. This picture shows the colours of the hills and the way that the small areas of soil had been harvested around the bands of rocks.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
Edited by yehti (Wed Aug 06 2008 01:20 PM)
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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I took this picture out of the car window as we drove towards the Trudos Mountains. Some of the colours in the hills were vivid to say the least.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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A few more miles and the colours had changed to this very light chalky soil. It was very strange because it reminded me of fields covered with a dusting of snow. Difference being that it was about 36 Celsius = 97f.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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DanS
Crown Killer
Reged: Sep 14 2003
Posts: 2234
Loc: St. Louis, MO
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Funny, how that looks like it could be Arizona to me.
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If it's not worth doing, then it's certainly not worth doing right.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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We traveled higher up into the mountains and came across this small isolated church / monastery and small museum of religious icons and stuff. The buildings were accessed across a small bridge that spanned a deep ravine. The bridge had a 10-ton weight limit sign. As I drove to the front of the bridge I noticed that a lot of the wooden planks were broken and split. I had visions of getting half way across and ending up with the wheels breaking through and the car grounding out. So I took the decision to park up and walk over the bridge to the church (Chicken). I don’t know how the hell the village people used to get across there in times when the bridge was not there. We thought that we were the only ones there but there was a priest and an old guy there. The old guy was slumped in a garden lounger seat half asleep. When they saw us they were so pleased to see someone / anyone to talk to. They gave us the full tourist tour treatment. The museum displayed a lot of religious paintings that had been stacked up in the back of the little church for hundreds of years and overlooked. Some were a bit rotten at the edge where they had been standing on the ground for so long. The old guy showed us a picture of the Madonna and child. The subjects had been painted with heads on an angled slant and wherever you stood to the left or right the subjects seemed to follow your movement with their gaze. Some of them had been painted and others were more like a collage of wood stones and gold, some of which was about 4 mm thick. There were some gruesome artifacts like skulls in silver boxes and paintings of people that had been flayed alive. In order to amend their human failings. The place was so isolated that there was no sound at all other that the grit under foot and it was hot and still without any breeze. The priest said that he had been there for 48 years. I wondered that if it had been me whether I would have gone crazy living in such isolation. Perhaps he had been a very bad man in a previous life and this was his lot in this life.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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The village priest. Could you live his life?
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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We left the small church and museum in the village of kalopanayiotis and drove higher into the Trudos Mountains and arrived at the monastery of Kykkou. The outside gave an impression of well-ordered solidarity with the entrance doorway heavily decorated. On the mountain side towering above the monastery was a large double bell tower imposing itself over the buildings below.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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The inside was very heavily decorated with wall mosaics and wall painting depicting scenes from the bible and ornate patterns. This is a view of one of the upper corridors. Nearly every surface was decorated.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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This wall mosaic was one of my favorites. The man is down and in a bad way, Injured and hungry. The people around ignore him but the ever-faithful hounds come to his aid by bringing him food, albeit a bone and licking his wounds.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
|
yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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I liked this one also. As these are one off’s, it must have taken an age to sort out the design and to identify what colours and shades the little tiles would have to be and how many of each would be required. The whole building was covered in designs and pictures like this. Some of them were of animals and birds and some were religious scenes.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
|
yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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We continued through the mountains and saw several of these military listening/radar sites (RAF Trudos) situated on different mountains. It is an ideal spot to have this type of stuff because to the north there is Turkey and Russia, to the east there is Syria, Lebanon and Israel and to the south there is Libya and Egypt. Given the current situation regarding terrorist attacks I was surprised at how close we could have gotten to them considering the importance to out intelligence system and the importance of gathering as much information about what is going on out in these places.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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And another.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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If you ever had asbestos sheets on a building or you lagged steam pipes on a ship or you put your foot on the brake pedal of a vehicle then the chances are fairly high that the asbestos in that product came from this open mine up in the trudos mountains. It operated from about 1904 until 1988 and millions of tons of asbestos were carried by aerial ropeway about twenty miles down to the seaport of Limassol for export all over the world. This place is pretty grim with piles of asbestos spoil alongside of the road. The people that lived and worked here have been shit on over the years because of the costs of the clean up operation. Looks like everyone (the government and the shareholders) had big hands in the pot when there was money coming in and now no one wants to know about the subsequent consequences for the environment or the health of the local inhabitants. I believe that the European commission has been pumping money into the reinstatement of the mine and a lot of the terraces had been covered with soil and trees planted as can be seen in the picture. This view is only a small part of the area and there were terraced mountains over several miles. Whilst we were in this area I thought "this is not not a heathy place to be" with asbestos dust blowing in the wind !!
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
Edited by yehti (Sun Aug 31 2008 05:18 AM)
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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I stopped the car at this picnic area to take this picture of the road winding it’s way down through the mountain with the mounds of asbestos spoil stretching up the mountain side. This is hardly a place that I would like to stop and have a picnic when the asbestos dust is blowing along on the hot dry wind.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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We drove all the way out to the western end of the island to visit the sites of antiquities near to Paphos and to view the general countryside in that part of the island. The drive time took about three hours each way along the motorway traveling at speeds of between 80 and 100 kilometers an hour. The day was fairly hot about 35 C and I found it very tiring especially after wondering around the area of the tombs of the kings. By the time that we got back to the car I was glad to turn on the air con and down a bottle of water. The area of the tombs is another of those bizarre places where a lot of energy must have been expended to hack them out of the rock but there is no logic in the way it has been done as it is just a random set up of the grand next to just plane holes in the ground. There was the usual random scattering of bits of ornate carvings and columns spread out over the site just as if the had been blown apart and scattered by a large explosion.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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site view
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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the old next to the new.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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All over this area were outcrops of rock that had either been excavated to make a tomb or were facets of the rock that had been opened up. Either way it was the same random thought pattern that we have seen all over the middle east of the grand design surrounded by a scrap yard of the unordered or unfinished.
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I am just a grain of sand on the wind.
The best I can do is to get stuck in someone’s eye.
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yehti
Flying Missionary Positioner
Reged: Jun 28 2002
Posts: 1040
Loc: **************
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