We didn’t do a great deal today at all. I don’t know whether it was the hot weather or the after-effects of yesterday’s “booze cruise” or a combination of both, but we got up fairly late this morning (9.00am) and sluggishly made our way to the dining room for breakfast.
I avoided the fatty bacon this morning and just had a couple of eggs and a slice of toast and marmalade, washed down with orange squash and instant coffee. Then we pondered what to do today. We are just so used to having all our holiday itineraries planned out for us, where we know what we’re going to be doing each day. It therefore seemed strange to be here in Cyprus and not have any plans.
We remembered seeing the hop-on-hop-off buses near the harbour, so we thought we’d take a slow stroll along there and have a ride around in an open-topped bus – a good way to see the sights and decide if there were any we wanted to explore in more detail.
We ensured we had a full water bottle with us this time, as it was already very hot and it promised to get up to 29°C today. As we walked along, we passed through a residential area where one of the houses had a skip in front of it. Hearing rustling coming from inside the skip, we looked in and saw a cat scavenging for scraps from a McDonald’s bag. When the cat saw us, he jumped nimbly onto the edge of the skip and started to walk along the inch-wide edge. Cats are just so sure footed and have perfect balance.
As we continued on our way, we came across an interesting old building and partially-excavated site, which a nearby sign told us was a medieval bathhouse from the Ottoman period. The stone-built building had unusual domes on the roof with small circles of glass to let in light. We peered through the barred door and saw that there were steps going downstairs, but the building was clearly locked to any visitors at the moment. A pity – we would have liked a look inside. I read later on that these Hammam Turkish baths are currently under restoration and therefore not open to the public.
Soon we reached the harbour and saw a couple of the HOHO buses parked up. We paid our 15 Euros each which allowed us unlimited access to the buses for 24-hours. We went up to the open top deck which was almost full.
The bus set off at 11.00am and we saw that there were 12 stops along the full circuit. Whichever stop you decided to “hop-off” at, you would have an hour before the bus returned to that stop for you. We thought we’d stay on the bus for the full circuit, then decide if we fancied getting off at any of the stops the second time around.
It was great on the bus. It was a good way of getting around without having to walk in the broiling sun. I frequently took swigs from the bottle of water as I didn’t want to become dehydrated. We looked at out leaflet so we could identify what there was at each stop. We thought that some of the archaeological sites would be interesting, but most of them just consisted of ruins rather than buildings you could actually go inside or at least see what they might have looked like.
Several times as the bus made it way through narrow streets, we had to duck to avoid overhanging tree branches. 🙂
It took an hour to do the full circuit, and we arrived back at our starting point just before 12 noon. We decided we would go and have a cold drink, and sit in the shade “mad dogs and Englishmen” and all that. 🙂
We went along to the same harbour-front bar we had visited on Thursday, and ordered a freezing cold pint of beer each, as well as a large bottle of water between us. Perusing the menu, I suddenly decided I was hungry and fancied some gyros. We thought that if we ate a decent lunch now, we wouldn’t want a big dinner later on.
I ordered pork gyros while Trevor opted for a jacket potato with cheese, ham and salad. I was a bit disappointed with the gyros; there seemed to be a lot of those thin, too-crisp bits in the chips and the pitta bread was toasted (I’ve no idea why – all it did was make it dry). The Greek salad and tsatsiki were nice though, and I dipped my chips and pork pieces into this piquant sauce. It’s strange; I hate cucumber but I do like tsatsiki. 🙂
Once we’d eaten, we pondered whether or not to go back to the HOHO bus and go somewhere else, but it was a case of “oh, can’t be bothered”. We thought we’d just take a slow stroll back to the hotel and maybe sit out at the pool for a while instead.
On the way back, we passed that lovely-looking church again and, once again, it wasn’t open. Maybe tomorrow – Sunday – they will have a service on and it will be open then.
We arrived back at the Paphiessa around 1.30pm and decided to have a power nap before venturing down to the pool. We turned the air-con on full blast and lay down on the top of the bed after setting the alarm to go off in an hour’s time.
Afterwards, we donned our swimming costumes and rolled up our towels under our arms, then headed down to the pool, procuring a sun lounger each in the shade. A number of inflatables bobbed about in the pool; they belonged to the hotel and were there just for the use of the hotel guests. There were a couple of lilos, a large rubber ring shaped like a doughnut and an inflatable killer whale. We watched in amusement for a while as a bloke made several attempts to get onto one of the lilos without falling off.
Walking to the edge of the deep end, I went to descend the ladder but there was a big drop between the edge of the pool and the top rung of the ladder, and I didn’t think my leg would reach. I then went to the shallow end where the drop down was more manageable, but as I descended the steps the water was a lot colder than I had imagined and I decided not to go any further. 🙂
Instead, we just sat out for a while, relaxing and reading. Presently I went to the bar and ordered Trevor and myself a cold beer each.
The rest of the day passed in its unhurried, pleasant way, and we returned to room 028 and decided to sit out on our small balcony for a while, now that the main heat of the sun had abated a little bit. It was great sitting out there reading, not having to look at a clock, just doing what we wanted, when we wanted.
Around 9.00pm we decided to go back to Mikey’s pub, the place where we had watched the England football match the other day. We went along there and there was some sort of rugby match on; I think Mikey’s bills itself as a sports bar. There were a lot of rowdy English rugby fans in and Trevor half-heartedly watched the game but I just sat with my Samsung tablet and did some of this blog instead.
A very pleasant Irish barmaid called Olive looked after us, ensuring we always had a drink and chatting with us. We started off with beer, but then I switched to my usual holiday drink of Aperol Spritz. At ten o’clock we decided we could eat something light, but they’d stopped serving food by then, so we made do with a bag of crisps between us instead. We liked the atmosphere in Mikey’s and stayed until around 11.30pm, aftering saying goodnight to Olive.
Back at the Paphiessa we decided to have a nightcap in the hotel bar. Trevor had a beer while I decided to try their Mojito. It was an ice-cold, refreshing drink and I enjoyed it so much I had another one! 🙂
It was about 12.30am when we returned to 028 and settled down for the night. We had no plans for tomorrow, but hoped we’d be able to book an excursion for Monday. We slept very well.