Livadhiotis City Hotel Larnaca

... a visit to Turkey since Turkey controls the show there even though no one else recognizes it?

The Greek side of Lefkosa is fully modern highrise sprawl oriented towards Europe, the signs are in Greek, and the people are mostly Orthodox. Just a few steps the Green Line over the city becomes a lowrise crumbling sprawl of a different world in Nicosia. Just for simplicity I will refer to the Greek side as Lefokosa and the Turkish as Nicosia. Across ...

... an old English **** in a wheelchair with a giant plastic bag containing something he had purchased and this same security guy reached for it. The old man told him to be careful because it was fragile and the old man even made motions not to crush the bag. Mr. Grab At Everything took these motions to mean go ahead and please do crush it and throw it in the trash can. Which he actually did right before our astonished eyes and that old man jumped out of that ...

... unlike here where it's all out in the open.

But back to my point...Billa provides a shopping experience I have never before seen in a supermarket. Just when I think I have seen it all, I find one of those travel experiences in some Bulgarian grocery store underground next to the subway station. All right there grouped together next to the registers (manned by dour matrons) where we would keep the tic tacs and magazines were mints ...

All packing and cleaning is underway !!! Only 36 or so hours left before we hit the tarmac at Larnaca !! Just need to get the dog wormed and de-flead (not that he has them !), groomed and then buy him a travel box for the flight !

Fingers crossed all our accommodation arrangements have been made for Athens and Samothraki !

... all just fit and seemed perfect. On the return to Paphos we spotted
the spot where Aphrodite was born from the sea and her temple up on a
cliff. It was a very long day but one filled with several
interesting sites. I almost forgot...in Larnaka we happened upon the
church of St.. Lazarus where he was finally laid to rest.

... and old buildings. We
began to come across check-points to cross the green line. For those
of you who are unaware, Nicosia is the last divided capitol in the
world. Half of it is on the Turkish side of Cyprus and half on the
former Greek side. For years it was very difficult to cross from one
side to the other but fortunately regulations have eased and it was
easy to pass through. This meant the first half of the afternoon was
in Cyprus and the second ...

Cyprus We made a very brief stopover in the UK, and gee that was a culture shock in more ways than one, especially after the tropical delights of Bali! Still, we mustn't grumble as the weather was very good for March! After a whistle stop tour of the family and a few friends we headed once again for warmer climes. We boarded one of the first flights on EasyJet's new route from Gatwick to Larnaca in Cyprus. All went well and on schedule, and just over ...

... is certainly a great place to vacation in the early fall. Late October and early November was still quite warm to our standards, but the tourist season was over for Eurpeans so it was a good place to vacation as it was moderately priced.

Yesterday we had a tour around the walled city of Nicosia. By walled I mean it was a Venitian City back about 1200 AD, so part of the old walled city still exists. The city of Nicosia is divided in half -- separated by the green line. Photos are not allowed in the UN areas but I including some of the area near the green line that shows what it looks like. Today we had two lectures. The morning was presented the Turkish Cypriot point of view of on what is preventing a solution to the ...

David managed to catch a cold & cough while in Cyprus. So we want to say a big thank you to all the family who gave lotions and potions and steam bowls for him. He got worse as the trip went on.... However, before we left Cyprus, we managed to try a delicacy....snails!!! They tasted fine....slight seafood taste but only faint. They actually looked very pretty...not like the brown garden variety back home! These were little and white with a pretty swirl of brown. Glad ...