Today we had a trip to Famagusta, the second largest town in northern Cyprus. It has the largest deepwater harbour on the island. Strategically important for thousands of years, it has been held by the Greeks, the Romans, the Venetians, The Ottoman Turks, The British, the Genoese, and now the TRNC.
The old walled city is a delightful place of narrow sunfilled streets, surrounded by the walls of yellow sandstone blocks. The mighty Sea Gate still stands guard at the harbourside and inside are atmospheric ruins of Venetian palaces, crusader churches and Byzantine buildings.
It’s about an hour and a quarter’s drive from the house, maybe a bit less. I gave Spitz his morning meaty breakfast which he devoured in about 3 minutes. He has slept perfectly the last couple of nights, as a result of not being starving I guess and having found a kind home. Tried to get him to stay in the garden when we left but he insisted on coming out to the car despite several backtracks on my part, and then he chased it down the road past the first corner. That made us nervous, and may explain why he got separated from his previous owner in the first place. Anyway, we were on our way……
We parked near the sea gate and made for Petek’s Patisserie, an amazing place of wonderful cakes, breads, gateaux, Turkish Delight and other baked treats. It also makes fabulous Turkish coffee served in ornate little metal cups. Daisy and I chose our gateaux. She had double chocolate and I had blackberry cream. I’ve had it before and I love it because it is incredibly light and airy and also the blackberries make it pleasantly sour against the cream. Daisy’s was just mega-death-by-chocolate and not incredibly light but it was incredibly dark and rich and as there is no justice in the world, she ate it all without needing to adjust the button on her size zero shorts….
We had a good shop fuddle around the stores in the old quarter of the city. Very good shopping for shoes and bags, jewellery in particular. Bob bought himself a new pair of swim trunks. He’s been wearing board shorts for the past 10 or so years but these new ones are still shorts, but somewhat shorter. Very stylish he looks too!!
His shorts were the only things we bought actually other than Daisy bought two boxes of divine Turkish Delight from Petek’s to take back to the office. I do recommend Famagusta for shopping, in addition to Nicosia old town and Kyrenia.
On our way home we called at the Airport Mall to have a look at that. We’ve driven past it so many times. Not a big mall. Daisy bought a pair of nice shorts in there in a sale. Last stop was the large supermarket on the airport road. Its more of a hypermarket. Bob got a high pressure washer that he’s been wanting for ages to help keep the patios and terraces clean. He got a Stanley one and it was £140, so pretty pleased. I bought a couple of loaves of the fabulous village bread you can get in the bakery there. Still warm. Also got some fish and some vegetables.
Gosh, it was so hot today. We couldn’t wait to get back to the pool. Thankfully, Spitz was waiting for us, boinging in pleasure. He had a really long swim and I gave him some tea: bread and buttermilk. We had an exciting communication from one of the rescue sites that a man who lives near us, wants him. We arranged to take him over on Monday. So exciting for him.
Unfortunately, as I write this, he has disappeared from the house. I hope he comes back. It would be just too ironic if he vanished just as we have found him a home. We went out and drove up and down the hill but no sign of him at all and I don’t believe he would have strayed far from food and security on his own. We have to assume that perhaps his owner has been driving up and down the hill looking for him and spotted him perhaps sitting at the end of our drive and scooped him up, not knowing we had been looking after him. That’s what we have to believe as we turn in……