Bit of a Cyprus trippie

[Dawn]

It was in the mid-30s every day, on a par with summer in Florida.

Photos will come in due course.

[ukwdwnut]

It was in the mid-30s every day, on a par with summer in Florida.

Photos will come in due course.

ok thx dawn, its just that lauren and michael said id love it there. just thinking of where to go if i can go abroad elsewhere.

[Dawn]

Sunday morning and Adrian and myself were joined by the pool man on the balcony. Actually he went down to clean the pool while we sat drinking our coffee. Luckily we had no plans for a morning swim today as we wanted to get moving as it would be a long day.

After breakfast and suncream and map studying we were off towards the mountains. The first wrong turn meant we almost invaded the Turkish enclave just up the coast from us. The second wrong turning meant we almost invaded it from the other side.

There was a real comedy moment as we found ourselves stuck behind a slow moving vehicle which gave us time to study what on earth it was. It was a very small truck bed, like a Bedford Rascal, on which a metal "shed" had been constructed. On top of this the internal workings of a domestic freezer were mounted. There were cables hanging off the side with a plug flying around in the breeze.

Once we'd past that (twice) and headed inland on to the mountain roads our next obstacle was goats! Herds of goats wandering along the side of the road. Then the map got confusing, not helped by the complete lack of road signs and having to stop a few times because the winding roads made Steven queasy. Also, where there was road signs they tended to be after the turning so you had to turn and then check the sign to see which way you should have turned. Everywhere we saw people getting out of cars and dashing back to read signs.

After a couple of hours we reached Kykkos, the sight of a famous monastery. The place was busy busy busy so we drove right on through and headed for a picnic site marked on the map. It was brilliant - tons of picnic benches up a side of a mountain with a covered area for grills and a toilet block (though this was basically a shed with holes in the floor). Eventually we figured we'd stumbled upon some Cypriot ritual - families were clearly arriving for lunch after church and bringing a car full of food and cooking equipment. Tablecloths were set out and salads made by the women while the men went to the grill station with the meat and fish. Made our sandwiches and stuff seem quite inadequate.

Suitably refreshed and smiled at by a lot of cypriots we headed higher. Mount Olympus is the highest peak at just under 2000m and we were driving along its side not too far down from the summit. We hit the cloud bank and just round another bend saw the brilliant site of a ski lift - apparently in the land of eleventy billion degree temperatures you can ski in the winter.

We stopped at the village of Troodos which isn't actually a village because no one lives there- it's just a cluster of restaurants and shops for tourists. Free parking of course. Steven found a playground to burn off some steam and then suddenly we realised how cold it was up there. We'd gone from 30+ degrees at the villa in tshirt and shorts to having goosebumps on our arms. Whilst we were checking out some shops I heard this funny noise and looked up to see it was pouring with rain. Two minutes later it had stopped and that was all the rain we saw all week. Bought some handmade candies and stuff to take home then headed back to the car and drove on to Platres which is a proper mountain village. We abandoned our car at the side of the road and followed one of the marked hiking trails to a waterfall spot then stopped in a cafe for a cold drink before heading home.

Drove south out of the mountains and down to the coast and on to our villa making it a complete circular drive. Straight in the pool when we were back and then it was another spinach/cheese/filo pie thing for dinner. Had a lovely day, despite nearly invading Turkey twice.

[Esmeralda]

Sounds really cool... now about these toilets?......

[Dawn]

It's how they do it out there. Restaurants are your best bet but public toilets tended to be few and far between and sometimes we'll say less than Florida clean. You just to accept that's how they do it and just go with the flow.

Or pack lots of wipes.

[Kate]

All your wrong turns etc are exactly the reason why we always went on coach trips on holiday!

[Dawn]

Monday morning started with the pre-breakfast swim, then breakfast, then the post-breakfast applying of the suncream. We're headed back to Pafos today and I'm letting Adrian drive as I'm feeling brave.

We take a small unintended detour to the harbour before getting back on track and arriving at the Tombs of the Kings at 10.30am. Free parking and 1.7 euros to get in and of course "there is no charge for your child". Now - I can't even begin to describe the awesomeness of this place. It's a huge site full of partially excavated burial chambers that were used for local dignitaries. It is truly amazing how you can just climb over the whole place - nothing is sectioned off. We climb in and out of all these chambers along with everyone else. No chance of that in Britain. The whole place was treated with total respect by visitors. Quite possibly the best 1.7 euros I've ever spent.

But - the heat was completely brutal. The whole place is in full sun with just the odd olive tree for shade. Even at 10.30am it was draining. My bottle of cold water was warm after about 30 minutes. We took about an hour to explore the whole site and by that time we were completely drained. Even with hats, suncream and lots of water. So if you go, be prepared and try and get there as early as possible. There's a reason they open at 8am.

After this we drove inland to the old part of Pafos but didn't stay long as it was mostly closed as today was a public holiday so we drove back down to the massive free car park at the harbour and flung ourselves into a non-english named restaurant and demanded cold drinks all round.

Lunch was a seafood platter for me - the swordfish was cooked to perfection and for the first time I tried cuttlefish (interesting). Steven had sheftalia and Adrian had afelia (pork casseroled with white wine and coriander ((cilantro)) ). An excellent lunch by the sea and then we are in the car and headed back home.

Of course as we pass through Polis we have to stop and have one of those lovely iced coffees and we supplement this with ice cream sundaes and just sit in the shade and chill (no tv football to spoil this today).

Then it was the petrol moment. The stupid unmanned petrol station. There was a Greek man in there at the same time as us and to cut a long story short he accused us of using his money to get our petrol. We speak 4 words of Greek and he spoke no words of English so there was a lot of arm waving and stuff and eventually the Greek man phoned the garage people and someone came down from another petrol station and proved to the Greek man that he was incapable of using the unmanned station and we hadn't used his money. That was interesting.

Quick supermarket stop and it's back to the villa for some serious pool time. Chicken with pasta and salad for dinner, and we are done.

Tomorrow is our last full day.

[Dawn]

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/c...-the-kings.htm

[uscwest]

That unmanned petrol station sounds gairy.

[Wendy]

Sounds like you had a great day, the tombs are amazing

I don't think they even charged when we went years ago We were amazed how people could just wander freely, I think I need to get the photos out and start reminiscing

I loved looking through the link Dawn