My most recent venture out of the country has been to visit my family in Cyprus. I visit every year to see my Grandparents and spend some time in the village where my Grandmother was born. My Grandparents were from two different villages and met when my Grandfather had to do some work in her village, Silikou.
They met young but knew they wanted to be together. They married and had children and have been happily married ever since. They have lived in England to provide a better life for their four children but when retirement came, they moved back to the village where they first met and loved.
Since then they have preoccupied themselves with looking after the land they have worked so hard to buy. This land provides them with home grown vegetables and fruit as well as olive and almond trees. They have everything they need from this land. They also look after chickens so they have eggs and meat to sell to other villagers. They make a good living for themselves from houses, flats and land they have bought over the years.
Silikou is located in the Troodos Mountains which is 650 metres above sea level. There are winding roads that lead onto the cobbled streets of my village. Every year from the age of 13 onwards, I travelled to this village to spend time with my Grandparents and various cousins that would stay in the village during the hot summer months.
As I get older I appreciate what this place has to offer. It is so quiet during the day and night. Every morning you can hear the church bells ringing. My relative is the priest of this local church but was born and bred in London. He has his own website which not only gives you an insight into the village itself but the history of our Greek Orthodox Religion. Check it out >>>
http://www.christopherklitou.com/index.htm
The reason for this post is that after spending some time with my cousin in the village on this particular visit, we were walking around and found ourselves talking about whether we would ever bring our children here. The conversation came up as we were reminiscing about our childhood days spent here. My cousin is only 13 but lived in the village for a while so we discussed the fun I used to have spending my summer holidays here, as did she.
I told her about the late nights playing pool in the local '
Siloyo' which had a pool table, games, ice cream and was the local hotspot of the village. I spent every night with the freedom to do what I wanted and walked around the village with all the locals and my English-Greek cousins. I used to eat at the small taverna that was there and go to the well to drink fresh drinking water.
It was a simple existence but I made it fun by exploring the village I was from and making friends along the way. Every year as the locals and my cousins grow older we spend less and less time there and now it is my cousin Athena and I that go every year.
As we strolled around we looked at all the things we could improve to make the village a place more people would want to visit. We thought about how to create the bustling atmosphere it once had and that surrounding villages, such as Platres, still have. We saw the closed museum and the run down park and thought if we could do these up people would bring their children here more often. We thought about adding a convenience store as well as doing up the '
Siloyo' with better quality pool tables and games to attract the teenagers back to their village from the main town.
We had so many ideas and vowed that when we made our millions, with myself writing and my cousin singing, we would come back here and restore the village to its once former glory. It is such a tame and quiet village now. It still has it's beautiful scenery but it has lost it's energy and this is why my family may not visit as much as they would do if there was more to do in the village.
There is actually a hotel called 'Village Life' in the heart of Silikou and we wondered if they had any visitors. It is done up in the traditional way and captures the essence of living in a village but what is the use without visitors?
I took some photos to show the beauty of my village and thought I would share a place that is unknown to so many people. I have never fogotten where I am from and as I promised my cousin, I will make this place a place to remember, for generations to come.
Here is a site with a bit more information about the history of Silikou >>>
http://www.cyprusvillagelink.com/SylikouEnglish.asp
 |
| This is the 'Siloyo' |
 |
| Fresh water well built into an olive tree |
 |
| The water comes out cold from the tree |
 |
| Another well, all provide fresh water unlike the towns |
 |
| Where we light candles for the local Saint |
 |
| Me exploring the village with the mountains behind me |
 |
| Inside an olive tree |
 |
| The road leading to the Church |
 |
| Where the chickens are kept |
 |
| The oldest well where the villagers fetched their water |
A holiday to Cyprus; this phrase comes with mixed views in recent years. Most people see it as a 'party island' now with the focus being on the town Ayia Napa which now rivals that of Ibiza or Malaga. People may think turning a once rather religious town - with a monastery and church nearby - into a party central destination is wrong but with the 21st century comes some changes Cyprus has had to make to keep tourism alive on the Island. 
