We were out and about today showing Joe some of the island. He’d got the day off to a good start by a pre breakfast swim in the pool. He is loving it!
First we drove down to Kyrenia and parked up in the main car park. Joe wanted to change some money which we did and then had a quick wander around the little bazaar area. He wanted a new leather belt for his shorts and there are some very good leather shops around there. Mostly they do handbags!!!! Oh… yes….. lovely handbags. The leather workers there obviously have a stock of bags on show but they also have the catalogues of all the top designer bag makers: Mulberry, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Chanel…. you name it. They can make you any bag you want in extreme detail. Some of their copies still cost hundreds of pounds depending on the leather, but you can pick up a decent copy for about £50 which will be leather but perhaps the lining not as good. Anyway, Joe got a really nice belt.
We then walked down the cobbled hill, past the old mosque to the harbour. Just one of the prettiest I have ever seen. It still enchants me even now. We walked around the base of the castle to the old Roman harbour and chatted to the captain of the yacht, Vela, our favourite gulet. He was disappointed we weren’t coming out with him this week. Then walked back around the harbour to the Lo Liman café and had cold drinks. So hot today! I like this café because they have big fans going and you can get some breeze. And wifi! Then we walked on along the seafront where men were fishing and went back into the shopping area. Called in at my favourite Turkish lamp shop. Such a lovely man that owns it.
Back at the car we headed up to Bellapais to give Joe a quick look at the quaint but rather touristy village. It is charming. We saw the Tree of Idleness restaurant that features in the Lawrence Durrell novels set here. He lived here after the more famous stay on Corfu. We saw the ruined abbey and the wonderful view down towards Kyrenia.
On to our lunch date with friends at Peris fish restaurant overlooking the Kervansaray Beach. We were so lucky to get parking right outside. This is a very new restaurant and it is large and very smart, beautiful views down over the beach and the coastline. We were meeting our friends, Mike and Zulfa, Marion and Mattie for lunch. It was excellent, we will definitely be back. We started with some light meze: salad, olives with pickled lemon, fava beans with dill and olive oil, bread. Then I had fresh grilled calamari stuffed with mozzarella and more calamari. Bob had the same. Mattie and Mike had fabulous massive king prawns baked in the oven. Joe and Zulfa had sea bass. Marion had seafood paella. Plates of chips arrived! It all looked great and certainly my calamari were delicious and tender and it was an unusual way to cook them. I loved it. I had 3 glasses of rose wine, everyone else had a lot of beer and there was Turkish coffee. It all came to about £12 each with tip. View was free but worth a million dollars!
We came back to the villa after a brief stop at the Cine World Bar shop at the bottom of our hill to check out the dvds. Bob ordered a box set of “The Pacific” for tomorrow as Joe is interested in that too. We came home and crashed out for a couple of hours. Then we all had a swim in the pool about 630. All got into our lounging clothes (read pyjamas) and the boys played cribbage on the terrace and I wrote this! We had g&ts and snacks, no one wanted dinner.
You must log in to post a comment.