Frank and Joan's news for 04 June 2007 in Northern Cyprus

Frank and Joan's Adventures in Northern Cyprus

Our adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....

Official start of the tour date. The Americans arrived looking jet lagged having flown in overnight, got to the hotel at 6 a.m., only to find their rooms not ready, and then set out at 8.30 for the first part of the tour. Are we glad we arrived two days ago, especially when we heard that one couple's luggage was still in L.A.

We started our city tour by visiting The Temple of Heaven and its vast grounds which are frequented by local people for their morning exercise. A meeting place for friends were they gather to talk, dance and play. Some of the dancers were working with these spectacular streamers which are beautiful to watch when done really well.

Beijing has a number of Temples built in the 1400s, each is surrounded by acres of beautiful gardens. The first of our visit was the Temple of Heaven which was considered as a supreme achievement of traditional Chinese architecture. These temples where used at specific times of the year by the Ming and Qing Emperors with all their wives and concubines. Some of the dec

orations on the roofs were of very strange animals, the more animals on each roof the more important the building. In the whole of this complex a considerable amount of restored decoration is visible, but have to admit that it is very tastefully done. One of the finest of the buildings was the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvests with its triple roof, glorious glazed tiles that symbolise the colour of heaven. From the interior you can see that the whole is supported by large columns and apparently built without a single nail.

From here we then went on a rickshaw ride through one of the older villages known as Hutongs which originally made up Beijing. Each of these Hutongs has a Bell Tower at one end and the Drum Tower making up the other. These were used to tell the people in the village the time during the working day. The Hutong we visited, had a full working Drum Tower but with incredibly steep stairs to get up to see the the interior and the views. The most striking of the views was the contrast of old with new, below you see the roofs of the Hutong village and in the distance the ultra modern that Beijing has now become.

Next visit was to The Forbidden City from where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties ruled their kingdoms for 500 years. Much of this city is still under major restoration, but the immense scale of the whole is something to be seen as it is made up of more than 9,000 rooms. We came out of The Forbidden City via the south gate and under the portrait of Chairman Mao which leads on to Tiananmen Square. Guess we all remember those scenes on TV many years ago with one student defying the whole Chinese army. Again the whole vast expanse is something to be remembered and only by visiting do you realise just how vast is vast.

We were all totally shattered by the end of the day and managed a swim in the hotel pool to relax and then dinner in the Food Court we visited on the first night.