3)OTHELLO CASTLE (UP)

I wandered through the history of the town in my mind, imagining Famagusta in each century. Its Venetian times, when the town was said to be the most beautiful, were my favourite time to picture; what would a sixteenth-century traveller sketching the castle have seen? What was it that, had so inspired him, that word of the town’s beauty and grace was carried from mouth to mouth, across the sea, to England, to the one who conveyed its charms to Shakespeare, who then chose it, as the setting for his play?

Why, I wondered, did Shakespeare choose this place? I mused over these questions as I watched the town awaken each morning, among the dances of the pink bougainvillea and white rose surrounding its walls. I strongly advise anyone visiting this town, to climb up to the castle early in the morning and spend some time there watching ‘the lads of Cyprus’ drinking coffee all day long, doing the very things that they have done for centuries – which, in fact, hasten the ruination of the town’s beauty.