Cyprus 2019

It's hard to believe that I've been home several weeks now since being away on holiday with my parents to Cyprus. We had left it quite late as usual to book anything and decided to return to Cyprus many years after our last visit mainly due to availability and the fact it was cheaper than a lot of the Spanish countries (Majorca etc.) We ended up staying in a small town called Polis which we hadn't stayed in before. We stayed in a hotel in quite a large apartment. My parents got the bedroom and I got the sofa bed in the main living area. The apartment was basic but nice, the only thing was that there was no air conditioning in the living area so we had to rent a fan from the hotel. It did help at night when trying to sleep though I woke up most nights with a very dry mouth (advantage of taking my hearing aid off at night is that I couldn't hear it!). The sofa bed was comfy enough but unfortunately it had angled metal legs that stuck out, I managed to bang a toe one night and then a couple of nights later I managed to do it again but ended up getting a cut on the top of a toe which bled quite a bit. I ended up having to put a plaster (band-aid to my American readers) on it for a couple of days. We got breakfast at the hotel as part of our deal which again was basic but nice, I ended up having fried eggs and toast every day!  It was a fairly small hotel but it had a good sized pool area with the pool split across two levels, the higher part had a shallow pool and then the lower part had a much larger pool with a proper deep end. There were a good number of sun loungers and parasols but unfortunately after the second day my dad had to resort to getting up early and leaving our towels down to reserve sun loungers after we struggled to get any that day due to other people doing the same.

Due to the heat it ended up being a very lazy holiday, we  spent most days at the hotel at the pool. If it got too hot you could just go in the pool (though I can't just jump in as I have to take my remove my hearing aids first). There was a beach nearby and we had actually bought swim shoes as we had read online that it was a rocky beach but unfortunately it was 20 minutes walk away. After walking there one night before dinner to check it out we realised that it wasn't really worth trekking all the way there in the heat. We did go into the nearby village of Latsi one night for dinner, we went by bus, had a walk around, had dinner and then walked back to Polis along the boardwalk which took about an hour but it was dark by then and not as warm. We also went into the capital Paphos one day which required a journey by one bus and then another shorter journey down to the harbour. Unfortunately despite being beside the sea there was no sea breeze so it was extremely hot. We had a walk along the seafront and we came across a woman selling tickets for a boat tour where you are guaranteed  to see turtles which I would have loved to have gone on but unfortunately they didn't have any spaces left for that day. We decided to get some lunch but were put off by the over eager staff members trying to encourage us to come into their individual restaurants and we ended up going to a place where we thought we had eaten the last time we had been in Paphos but unfortunately both the food and the service was poor. Given the heat we decided to walk to a shopping centre (mall to my American readers) that we had seen on the way to the harbour. It was a good decision as it was air conditioned! It was lovely and modern and I even spent some money buying two t-shirts for a good price. That was about the sum of the excitement for the holiday but I didn't mind as it was meant to be a relaxing holiday. It hasn't been the best of summers in Northern Ireland so it was great to get a week away in the sun. It was around this time last year we were up the north coast including seeing the air show at Portrush but we already had a few days up there earlier in the summer so that is us for holidays for a while.

Me just before lunch in Paphos, see if you can spot my injured toe!

Thanks for reading,

James