What new adventures await??

 05-29-21, Saturday

It's another clear, beautiful morning!  Yoga and such out of the way and it's time for breakfast for me and espresso and pastries for Ammar.  This morning's offerings included little baby spanakopita!  It sure is easy to get used to this idea of breakfast, and it lasts all day. Yesterday we never even thought about eating until dinner time. 

Ammar talks to the desk about us cancelling a few days in the middle of our stay here so that we can go to Limassol and Paphos.  Soon we get a call back and the manager has okayed that plan with only a small modification fee!  We'll get a voucher back and can plan what to do next.

I checked my phone just now and found that we walked five miles yesterday!  And yoga was pretty tough this morning!  Getting massages is an even better idea than it was yesterday when Ammar first suggested it.  We were actually looking for a Turkish bath, but they seem to only be in Nicosia, so a massage will certainly do.

Before setting out, we spend some time planning out the next six days, choosing hotels in Limassol and Paphos, and booking a tour of some of the tiny villages in the Troodos Mountains.  I ask if they will include a visit to a winery, as well as some of the other local delicacies and get an almost immediate response, assuring me that they will!  And both hotels respond positively to my request for a double bed and not the two twins that are a possibility. 

With that all taken care of, we stop at the front desk and give them our new departure and arrival dates and ask about Bowty Thai Massage, finding that it really is as close as the map suggests!

Well, Bowty Thai is only a three minute walk;  but, although the door is open, no one answers the bell.  We walk back to Frangiorgio and talk with the ever-helpful desk staff. They call the next-closest place, which can well recommended, and find that they are fully booked for today.  Maybe we can try when we get back, or find a place in Limassol.  In the meantime we take a walk and choose a coffee shop with tables on the sidewalk.  I get an iced latte with hazelnut syrup and Ammar orders an espresso (surprised??) and when the order comes I discover that he's added an indescribably yummy cake-torte kind of chocolate wonder with crunchy bits inside it.  We sit an talk for about an hour and still can't finish our enormous treat!  But the wind is blowing and it's gorgeous out, and it's such fun too watch Ammar identify where people are from by listening to their accents.

                    This is the carousel I mentioned yesterday.  And the little fuzzy guy in the front

                            seems to be available for the kids to ride as daddy pushes them around!

            The palm trees and hibiscus and bougainvillea all make it feel like home here, except that

                    the pace of life is so much slower - and everything is so very, very clean!!

                                                See?  I told you it was huge and delicious!

We come home so Ammar can do some more work and I can continue blogging before we go to dinner.  I hope we wait a while!  That was a lot of treat!!  It's way more dense than you might imagine from the photo!

Eventually I call the desk and ask the concierge to call us a taxi and to make reservations for us at that wonderful seafood restaurant where we ate the first night.  When we get downstairs, our first cabdriver is there!  He's pleased that we liked his recommendation!  He and Ammar discuss the impact of the virus on the tourism trade and the world at large as well as the conflict between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.  When we arrive Ammar arranges for him to come back and pick us up at 7:45.

I finally got my kitty fix!  There's an orange tabby that is is such a lover!  She twines back and forth between my feet and keeps offering her head for a scritch. Awww! 

Inside I realize I don't have my glasses; but it doesn't really matter, I seldom do the ordering anyway!  Tonight we have the Greek salad, which isn't anything like Pappas'!  Then comes a different shrimp dish;  these are peeled and served in a splendid garlic sauce and come with delicious rice.  We also reprise the sea bass and manage to demolish the whole thing.  It comes with French fries and, like the rice, they go almost untouched!  Who needs starches when there's all this glorious seafood?  Along with the check comes two mini pastries that are stuffed with cheese and bathed in honey. OMG Yum!!

                        We are just at the beginning of the dinner hour.  The place fills up before we leave!

                   See?  It's just tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onions in seasoned olive oil and it's superb!

                           The sea bass is smothered in onions, carrots and red and green peppers!

                                                             The man works all the time!

We have finished early and go outside to walk and talk while we wait for our taxi.  Across the street a man with a serious camera is trying desperately to get one of the restaurant cats to cooperate! 

Our cabbie is right on time and drops us off near our hotel;  I don't quite catch the reason why.  And we don't quite catch the directions that would take us home.  There's quite a bit of walking and talking to strangers and, again, when we finally find a local, we're practically there! Now I don't feel guilty about the pastry, or our afternoon snack! Along the way, Ammar has a chance to compare the prices at Zara, a famous clothing store in this part of the world, in Jordan and Cyprus.  They are really high in both countries!

We stop into the mini mart adjacent to the Frangiorgio for canned lemonade and a bottle of Stella Artois and then stop by the desk to thank the concierge for making our arrangements.  She almost won't take the tip Ammar gives her, saying she was just doing her job!  But she saved me from having to figure out how to make those calls and I thank her, too!

We're home pretty early and sit out on our balcony talking for hours before coming back inside.  Another glorious day!