St Nicholas Church

Before we left for home our last stroll was along the shore to the recently renovated St Nicholas Church in Paphos where we sheltered shortly afterwards during a thunder storm.

The previous day on our walk we had passed a little church high up in the hills dedicated to St Ilias (the Greek name for the OT prophet Elijah). According to another legend Elijah was discontent with his life as a sailor and decided to find a place where nobody knew anything about the sea and so he set off carrying an oar and asked people what he was holding. Eventually high in the hills no one recognised the oar so he settled there. Apparently he was venerated for bringing the welcome rain for the crops and the wind for threshing. Now many little hilltop churches are dedicated to him and St Ilias’ help is sought every year for a good harvest. Certainly their prayers seem to have been answered early this year with the rain and very strong gales of the last three days. Whereas we were dismayed with the typical British like weather the locals were pleased with the rain to replenish their water supplies. We arrived home to discover that the temperatures and weather had been better than those we had there for the last couple of days. But as we had not intended sitting round a pool or sunbathing we were not worried and had enjoyed our week exploring the countryside and I especially enjoyed finding many plants which grow only in Cyprus and am now trying to find more information particularly about the endemic plants.