Thin Spaces at the Edge of Heaven - Photos by Jan Sassaman

Portals

  • Home
  • Albums
  • Timeline
  • Essays
Home / Essays / 2016 / October / Tree of Idleness
Share
October 28, 2016

Tree of Idleness

The Cypriot village of Bellapais and the "tree of idleness" were immortalized in Lawrence Durrell's book "Bitter Lemons of Cyprus" in which he described the villagers' favourite activity which was to spend hours and hours in idle chatting under the so-called "Tree of Idleness" which dominated the main square. Throughout the whole book there is no mention about what kind of a tree it was. Today there are two trees that compete for this title. One is a leafy ancient, now-sickly mulberry tree overshadowing the coffee shop next to the Bellapais Abbey ticket booth. The other contender is a Japanese pagoda tree that casts its shadow over the eponymous Huzur Agaç (Tree of Idleness) restaurant. Fairly, both trees could qualify for the role pretty well as each of them attracts a crowd of onlookers. Still it is usually the mulberry under which the men of the village sit on their rustic chairs clutching a cold beer and play a game of backgammon. The picture is very much alike to Durrell's story in which villagers would idle the days away. Whichever tree it is does not really matter since the story brings many visitors and remains a constant source of debate (modified from North Cyprus Online).

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214948.Bitter_Lemons_of_Cyprus

In the Time of COVID Featured Photo Albums
View all essays by month
Links
  • Galloway Ridge in the Time of COVID
  • Home
© 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 Jan Sassaman | Built with Koken