Kykkos Monastery

The topic of which is the best Monastery to visit was on discussion early morning in our hotel lobby.  Verse and I were checking out of our hotel in Lemesos and going to stay in another town, but before we left we were asking the lovely older couple that own the hotel, which one of the many Monasteries was their top choice. The wife told us her favorite and asked her husband his opinion. He very strongly chose another one. “Kykkos Monastery is the one to visit,” he said, “It is the most impressive.” We were only going to be visiting one Monastery during our trip so we set off for his choice, which was located in the Troodos region.

Kykkos monastery, which is set among picturesque hills, is the most opulent on the island and I guess by impressive that’s what the hotel owner meant. At the entrance purple robes are available for those visitors who aren’t dressed conservatively enough to put on while walking around. As we strolled through the property, we saw bright, intricate frescoes and mosaics on every wall and many of the ceilings. These paintings told the stories of the gospels and (as Verse found out from a monk he started a conversation with) the famous martyrs.  

During our visit we went into their small chapel where streams of devotes and tourists milled around. The devotees lined up patiently to pay homage to different images of saints, by silently bowing and kissing the glass. Some wrote on pieces of paper and stuck them into a box by the altar. The tourists, like me, were staring in awe (and disbelief) at the almost all gold décor. This is where I wish my drawing chops were up to par as they didn’t allow photographs to be taken in there and I would have loved to share what inside the chapel looked like. I think everything in the chapel was made of gold. I mean everything to the point that opulent might not be a lavish enough adjective to describe the room. I sat in the chapel and wondered about the ritual the devotees were taking part in as they had also shown their respect to display cases in the next room that housed clothes, jewelry and bones of, I assume, very important people in the religion (it was all written in Greek so I couldn’t tell for sure). I desperately wanted to have use of the “Who wants to be a millionaire” phone-a-friend option to call someone to find out more about it.  The gold fortune in the chapel also brought up the question of why it is needed in there as opposed to using it to provide for the less fortunate.

On the premises there is a gift shop and a wine shop (yes a wine shop in the monastery), where we bought some postcards (from the former) and a bottle of wine that was produced in the monastery’s winery. The wine, which we devoured on our return to London, was delish. This monastery definitely made for a very intriguing visit with all the stories being told via the amazing wall paintings, the one of a kind, all gold décor of the chapel and the surprise of the monastery produced wine! Here are a few pictures from our visit.

Kykkos Monastery in The Troodos region

The courtyard of the Monastery

Kykkos Monastery

Wall paintings and Mosaics including the one far right of The Virgin Mary

Wall paintings and Mosaics are placed in every available space

Most of the ceilings show amazing art work

Kykkos Monastery

Kykkos Monastery

Visitors wear the purple gowns as they explore the monastery

The entrance of the Kykkos Monastery where purple robes are available for visitors