[ Apr.2015 ] During our individual tour into the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, we visited the ruins of Salamis.
People lived here as early as the 12th century BC and now you can see the ruins of Roman and Byzantinian monuments.
It is a huge place and our guide book says that it takes at least a half day to look at them, but we just had a quick look at the Gymnasium and the Amphitheatre.
The Gymnasium was something like a sports centre and there were swimming pools and baths.
We saw some statues without heads at one corner.
Apparently, some Christian zealots decapitated them so that the pagans would not worship the idols.
I have seen some similar things done by Muslims, but I did not know the Christians did the same.
The Amphitheatre seated 15,000 people.
Even now, they do some performances during the summer.
The beach near the ruins was beautiful.
Apparently, before 1974 when the Turkish troops invaded, it was the main touristy resort area around here.
The place like Paphos, where we stayed, is the newer resort, which was made up because southern Cyprus lost this place.
