Cyprus Week 2 – 3 Cars and 1,000 Cats!
We had quite a busy and eventful week but it started at the dining table in the flat, trying to get a new routine started for work! Still so excited to be here, and desperate to get out into the sun, it was difficult to concentrate at first, particularly when you can see the sea from our table!
We’ve got into a good routine though, setting the alarm for 6.45am, starting work between 7-7.30 and working till around midday where we’d clock off and head to the beach. It’s a routine I could get used to!
If you read last week’s blog, you’ll know that we were told that our car was going to be swapped for another car this week, although the reason for this remained a mystery! Well, the car did end up being replaced this week, not once, but twice! The first time was because the car broke down which didn’t surprise us in the slightest given that it had the engine of a lawn mower, struggled with anything remotely uphill and to get above 50 kmph meant foot flat to the ground and hoping for the best!
After around 45 minutes of jump starting, the Nissan Note spluttered back to life, but was swapped with a different car – and we had our second Cyprus car. It was a white Nissan Saloon car, (like a taxi) and was made within the last decade, unlike the Nissan Note. It even had parking sensors – luxury! However, this was short-lived and on Friday, we were treated to a nice dose of reality when our new, automatic, slick car was swapped with an old manual Clio which, whilst it can just about reach the speed limit on the motorway, it lacks the mod cons of the Nissan Saloon car. Anyhoo, it gets us from A to B (or at least we are hoping it does, it’s still early days) and that’s all we need! We are told that we’ll have this car till the end of our stay, but I wouldn’t like to tempt fate.
As we are still getting to know the area, we decided to go for a walk on Tuesday afternoon along the beach path, but in the opposite direction to where we usually go. There weren’t many bars or cafes to explore or try along that stretch of path, but it was a really lovely walk, right along the coast and there were SO many cats, all the way along the path. Being a huge cat lover, obviously I had to stop, stroke and talk to each one and whilst I was happy to see the locals were feeding them (there was a trail of biscuits along the entire path), when compared to our own cat’s lives back in England, who live like royalty, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad for these cats, particularly the teeny tiny kittens, and wondered how without their vaccinations life treated them. Largely though, they all looked healthy and relatively well cared for.
Wednesday and Thursday followed the same pattern with work in the morning and the beach in the afternoon. Not a bad routine!! Wednesday night we joined Lex and Chris at the Nag’s Head – slightly more trendy than pubs of a similar name in England! – for the Champions League. We met a few more of their friends, had a few beers and called it a night!
On Friday, we decided to break the routine and went for our first morning swim. Early morning is the best time to swim as it tends to get quite windy in the afternoon and swimming becomes quite challenging, with your face becoming a wave breaker. We got to the beach around 8.30 and the water was fresh and calm! It was like swimming in a pool, it was so still and you could see all the way to the bottom. We swam up to the first restaurant, Puesta Oyster Bar on the beach path and back, which my Fitbit tells me was just under 1km (although Aaron’s said something like 500m so who knows!). We also swam to the artificial reefs, stacked up boulders lying just off-shore to see if we could see any fish, but it must have been too early for them as we didn’t see anything interesting – we’ll have to go back with snorkels! It was such a nice way to start the day.
After our swim, we headed out in our Clio for its first proper outing! We drove to Paphos to see our friends Jon & Sabine and their little baby daughter Isla. Paphos is around 50 minutes from Limassol and is literally one road the whole way there. We collected Jon, Sabine & Isla from their hotel and headed to Paphos Harbour where we stopped for some drinks, food and had a good catch up. They are in Cyprus looking for wedding venues so we were excited to hear all about it! In the evening, we had a few drinks at their hotel before heading back to Limassol at midnight. As Aaron was around 10 pints in, we decided it was probably best that I drove home. Whilst the drink driving rules here are a little more lax than in the UK (apparently), we decided not to put it to the test.
The following day, we headed to Lady’s Mile in Limassol with Lex, to nurse Aaron’s sore head on the beach. Lady’s Mile is to the west of Limassol and is very close to the British RAF base in Akrotiri, you can actually see planes taking off and landing at the base from the beach. Lady’s Mile was named by a British governor who regularly took his horse, Lady, for a trot down this stretch of sand. It’s 5 km long and is the longest beach in Limassol, split into sections by the various restaurants and beach bars that line the sand. We stopped at Apolostra, which is one of the first restobars on the road, and we stopped at this one purely because we weren’t sure whether the Clio would make it any further along the bumpy unmade road. The sand is soft and dark gold in colour, the water crystal clear and we had a lovely time swimming, topping up our tans, drinking beer (coffee for Aaron) and enjoying the beach. There was a floating platform about 30m out in the sea which we swam to and gave us the perfect place to practice our dives (or bombs!) whilst topping up the tan!
We headed back to the centre of Limassol, and ate at Aristos & Kiki’s, one of our favourites for Cypriot food – and it must be good because a lot of locals go here (in fact it was recommended by our two favourite locals in the first place!). It does the best chicken souvlaki and sheftalia (Cypriot minced meat sausages sort of) all served with salad and a pitta. So cheap too at €6! We had an additional furry friend join us for dinner, called Tom, who was a bit feisty and more interested in playing with our flip flops and nipping our ankles than the food. He eventually conked out under the table for a little rest whilst we had dinner – too cute!
Next week, we’re planning on going to the Limassol Waterpark and to check out Governors Beach (not sure if this is the same Governor with the horse, will find out and come back to you) so come back next week to see how we get on!
Love,
Meg xx
