Writing to his parents, Alfred Westholm of the Swedish expedition to Cyprus poured out his thoughts and romantisicm:
Evening is here. Night comes down over Vouni. The quiet, finely tuned humming choir starts up its familiar melody. The basic chord, which is purely clear and clean, gives an undefined impression of endlessness. Through the slow murmur from the branches of the haroupia trees come the plaintive cries of the owls from down in the valley. They call and answer one another all through the night, but it is impossible to hear where the different sounds come from. From the feverishly rhythmic sea the sound of long, retreating waves sometimes reaches all the way up here, sometimes thumping and clucking in the dark beach coves, where the rock face falls straight down into the water, sometimes with a short surge; it must be by our swimming beach. Is it one’s imagination, thinking one hears how the waves, again with a slow rustling, flow back between the sand and pebbles of the beach to meet the next wave that washes up onto the shore? It is the same strange hymn, which during almost the entire last year has sounded in my ears at the moment I fall asleep at night. Wherever I am, I can recall in my mind the memory of it, and anyone who comes here a hundred years from now will surely hear the same. Memories of the past time at Vouni with its remarkable experiences force themselves upon me with invincible strength and I understand that these memories for me will always stand out as a great and beautiful treasure, more wonderful than everyone else’s. From down in the valley I can hear the wailing calls of the owls, the lights in the Karavostasi harbour blink and reflect in the black water, but among the leafy trees beneath the dark terrace walls of the palace ruins goes Alfiros, picking white lilies in the moonlight…