The next stop was inspired by a geocache and the more we researched the site the more excited we became about the visit. The site is the Amiantos abandoned hospital and is part of the Troodos Geopark as far as we can tell. It has a large parking and a good trail to it but there are no signs pointing in the direction or telling you what to expect. Which is of course a lot of delapidated buildings that were once the hospital of the asbestos mine nearby.
We explore first the buildings from the outside but when we find an open entrance we cannot resist and decide to also explore inside, as countless other people did based on the graffiti.
Walking inside feels like walking in a post apocalyptic landscape. Everything is broken down and we take our time exploring as well as being careful not to enter any unsafe areas.
The graffiti can be gratuituous or offensive but it can also be genuinely funny and inventive. Like the psychotherapy room – we can actually imagine it was used for this reason during the hospital’s heyday. The hospital is also larger than we expected and as we go deeper it becomes easier to get lost and not be sure which way to exit. This is especially true when we are in the old entrance hall (or so we assume) which has many doors in multiple directions each branching even further.
The rooms themselves are cleaned out but still you can imagine how each one could have been used. Some were likely patients rooms, some were recreation rooms or examination rooms and some were of course toilets and kitchens and the like.
We finally make our way to another exit with a great view of the overgrown hospital from outside. It is always interesting when visiting these sites to see how nature reclaims human buildings, here the birds for certain are quite happy to have many protected nesting places. And then it is time to leave but we are not going far as the Botanical Garden is just a couple kilometers away.
