Back to our roots…

Well, we finally made it…back to where it all began…the place where my Greek family comes from….Asgata, Cyprus.  It’s been many years since my Mother and Thea have been back here and although some things have changed, some things have stayed exactly the same.  We met up with Fito and Stella…cousins also from the village…who offered to take us on a tour of the area.  Thank goodness too, because I’m not sure I would have been able to maneuver around with the big van we had.  As with all Cypriot people, they had food ready for us…a beautiful spread of breads, cheeses, fruits, coffee, tea, etc.

We enjoyed the amazing food, relaxed a little and they reminisced for a while.  Old pictures were pulled out as well:

It was wonderful to see their excitement…but this was just the beginning.  From here, we walked through the village to explore a bit of our history.  Mom & Thea were having a ball remembering all of the places they used to play, where they went to school and the people of the village.  First thing we found was a monument of some of the old coal carts:

Mom shared a story with us….apparently, one of my Great Uncle’s worked in the coal mines and most days of the week, the family packed a lunch and Mom used to take it over to him…so seeing these coal cars triggered a nice memory for her.  From here we walked over to the old cemetery where Mom & Thea’s Papou was buried:

 

Down the hill a little ways from this main area was a small church.  At first, Mom didn’t recognize it until she went inside:

It was then that she realized this was the church they used to go to as children.  She thought it was bigger than this, but because she was a child at the time, of course it felt bigger.  It seems that my Yiayia, and several others made donations to this church to help pay for the roof.  Her name is engraved on this marble slab outside of the church doors…4th name down:

Yes, that is ‘Kalypso Constantinidou’ in Greek!   Now here are a couple more shots of the inside of the church:

After this, we walked into what you might consider to be the town square…even though it’s not technically square.

Mom & Thea’s Papou (Grandfather) had a bakery right here:

Fito tells us that it was also a cafe and then this coffee shop, but soon, this will be a bakery again….so I guess it all came full circle. From here, we went down the street to another cousin’s house who was renovating her house a bit.  She immediately offered us food and drinks, but we were still full from earlier, so we just had a little water (it was very warm that day!).  From here, we walked over to Mom & Thea’s childhood home…just look at these narrow streets!:

Remember, these villages were built way before cars…they only had donkey’s at the time…so why would they need to make them any bigger?  Fast forward to now and of course, it’s quite an issue getting around with larger cars.  Anyway, Mom & Thea saw their home and was happy it was much the same as it used to be….although Fito thinks the current owners will be renovating soon:

They definitely had humble beginnings.  But, what more did you need?  While here, I wanted to be sure to get a 3 generation picture taken:

I like it.  🙂   From here, it was time to…you guessed it…eat again. (I swear, that’s all we’ve done on this trip!)  We followed Fito to a restaurant that was smack dab on the coastline:

I mean, look at my gorgeous kids!  Yes, that is a beautiful view behind them too.  This was a seafood restaurant…and although Brittany does not like fish, she ordered this amazing pomegranate salad that was WAY good!  Here are just a sampling of the giant amount of food we had…and the crowd we were with:

And of course, no meal can be complete without Dad being a nerd:

Crazy!  Now that we were stuffed to the gills (ha!  I made a funny!), we headed back to Asgata where we came across Mom’s school:

Mom was excited and felt just like a kid again!  Across the street from the school is a huge lot that Fito & Stella own which include almond trees on the property.  All of a sudden, I heard rocks clanking together and this is what I saw:

They were using the rocks to crack open the almonds!  Just like they’ve done for generations.  Amazing!  Stella’s sister decided she wanted to gather a ton of almonds so she could do something with them later:

Cute!  The last thing we did was go to the local cafe where we met some more friends & cousins, townspeople and whomever happened by:

Coincidentally, the Mayor of the town happened by and brought over a couple of pictures after he was talking about the history of the Village:

One of them happened to be my Yiayia and Papou on their wedding day!

Beautiful!  How neat that they will be on the history wall!  Anyway, everyone had a great time catching up and taking lots of pictures:

It’s been a big day, and everyone was tired, so it was time to go home.  Last thing I needed to do, was get our van through these tiny streets and head home:

Goodnight!