Sunday Afternoon Tea..

We had Sunday to ourselves as Kaye and Co were going with Mum and Dad to a Jubilee lunch so we took the opportunity to take ourselves off on the bike and explore a part of our area that we haven't explored before.  We started off by taking the road where the church in the cave is located - there is a walk shown there on an information board but we didn't know whether we could follow it on the bike or if it took us anywhere.

The road we chose was quite rough so John took it slowly slowly on the bike and I got off and walked so that I could take photographs of the stunning scenery - there is still a bit of greenery around although the landscape is getting drier by the minute.  There are still plenty of wild flowers along the roadside which attract a wide range of beautiful butterflies.

We are very blessed to be living in such a beautiful part of Cyprus and to have all this right on our doorstep.  Soon it will be too hot to do these sorts of bike rides - even today we both ended up with burned faces and me with burned shoulders!

The first road we chose ended up at a viewing vantage point so we stopped for a while then turned round and made our way carefully back.  Not sure exactly where we wanted to go, we took a ride into Kathikas and then turned off at the sign for Sterna Winery and carried on down the road until we came across the Herb Garden at Pano Akourdhalia which is run by Herbalist Caroline Evans www.heavenonearthherbals.com

What a lovely place to while away an afternoon drinking coffee or sipping one of the specialist teas or infusions and eating a slice of the wonderful cake on offer.  The smells emanating from the shop and the garden are intoxicating.  On the subject of the cakes they are wheat free and gluten free and absolutely delicious - we opted for the lemon and almond and were not disappointed. 

I am going to suggest to Kaye and Richard (as they were keen to go for a walk whilst on holiday) that they could walk there from the villa in Kathikas and burn off enough calories for a slice of cake, taking one of the tables located in a shady spot.  I would hazard a guess that this will be somewhere we will be visiting again - and soon!  If you haven't tried it then I would recommend you do!

We made our way back home taking in all the beautiful scenery - boy it was hot!  We needed to find out from Bambos if the Palates Hotel Apartments would be open for food because our neighbour Gregoris wanted to take us out for a meal and had met Bambos in Nicosia so wanted to check out the hotel.  Gregoris has never eaten in the village so was keen to try it.  We stopped at Bambos's taverna, O Stathmos, to check and found out that Palates would be closed but Stathmos would be open.  Gregoris did not realise that O Stathmos and Palates are both owned by Bambos so decided that he wanted to eat in Kathikas and suggested either Petradaki or Yianni's.  We persuaded him to go to Yianni's because, it being Sunday and it being a holiday weekend Petradaki was bound to be full and we had no booking. 

The plan was to go out with Gregoris and his son Stavros, Stavros was having a quick meal with us because he was off in search of some nightlife in Paphos.  Yianni's was packed to the gunnels but we found a table and sat down to enjoy a meze.  To be fair it was a good meze but we were still eating at midnight!