One of the most interesting peculiarities of Larnaca can be noticed already at the airport. It's a big salt lake with the area of 2km2. In winter it fills up with water and attracts numerous birds, in summer it dries out and its salty surface crunches under your feet. At the shore of the lake, somewhere in palm trees and cypresses, there is a minaret of one of the main Islamic shrines - Mosque of Hala Sultan Tekke.
In fact near Larnaca there are 4 salt lakes - 3 of them are small and 1 is big. Their whiteness seems to be be unearthly in the October heat and the burning sun.
In winter months about 85 kinds of birds come flying here. Pink flamingo is the most beautiful.
The mosque is on the left, the wind-powered generator on the left
The further you go from the shore the more salty cover resembles snow.
Take some home for bathing!
Salt extraction has been made for many years on the lake. The salt was collected and put in baskets, then carried to the shores on donkeys where heaped up. Later manual labor became too expensive and the extraction was stopped.
In winter the depth hardly exceeds 1 m...
But let us now cross the lake and come closer to the fourth main Islamic shrine after Mecca, Medina and Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem.
The legend says that in this very place an elderly aunt of Mohammed the Prophet named Hala Sultan fell from the mule and broke her neck.
She was buried in a proper way and over her grave they erected a mosque and built a mausoleum in 1817.
Since then pilgrims from all over the world come here to worship the shrine.
Shoes are left outside
The aunt's mausoleum which may be rounded through this narrow gallery.
They say when the island was divided into the Greek and Turkish parts, the mosque stopped working.
Salt Lake panorama
Salt Lake panorama
via omnesolum
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