At Rizokarpaso take a turning to the left, followed by a fork right and then another turn to the left, for a diversion to Ayios Philon Church, which is situated about 2 mile north on the coast, and north of the site of the ancient city of Karpasia. Karpasia never recovered after being burned by the Saracens in A.D. 802. When the survivors of the city's population were able to return from the hills on the departure of the raiders they transferred to what is now the village of Rizokarpaso.
The district had been converted to Christianity by Philon, metropolitan bishop of the Karpas, who is the patron saint of the ruined Byzantine church on the sea-shore. This may have been his cathedral. Fragments of the old city are in evidence in the church's walls, which are constructed of unusually large blocks of masonry. Rounded arches suggest that this part of the church is of the tenth or eleventh century. But of even greater interest is the site of an earlier ecclesiastical building to the south, where there are particularly good marble floors in geometric patterns. The circular central design in red, yellow, black and white is a thing of great beauty.
This is a pleasant place, on the edge of the sea, and bears another resemblance to Lambousa because there are portions of the old city's Harbour Works to be seen below the surface of the sea. The mole to the east, which was built of enormous blocks of stone clamped together with metal, can be followed for 370 ft from the shore.
At the time there are plans for a holiday village (chalets and central service area) on the coast road running north-east from Rizokarpaso to Apbendrika, where there are remains of four Romanesque churches, and a pre-Christian citadel behind the quarry. It has been suggested that this is the site of the old town of Urania. The whole site awaits excavation.
The road eastward from Rizokarpaso, having continued across the narrow peninsula, reaches the south coast, where it comes out of the hills opposite the tortoise-shaped rocks known as the Khelones. A succession of wide sandy beaches backed by sand dunes fringes the road.
This north-eastern spit of the island was known to the ancients as Dineretum. Its extremity, which is accessible by a four-mile cliff path from the monastery, was marked by a temple of Aphrodite Acraea, the barest traces of which have survived. The site has in fact been so exhaustively plundered of building stone that further investigation is pointless either by archaeologists or the casual sightseer.
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