Drouseian Day Out Part 2

With our plans for the day stymied by the weather we left the Mall and drove around finishing up at Debenhams, arriving in the rain and then, having perused the sale, leaving in sunshine!!  I contacted Louise in Limassol to check on the weather there as we were only an hour away but she said it was still pouring down.  She said that we had definitely made the right decision to postpone our trip.

We made it to the Beer Sellar and Rob breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was open - this is like Mecca to a beer/cider drinker as Athos stocks so many different brands many of which are only available through him.

The supermarkets now stock a limited range of bottled ales so generally John is able to get a few but he sadly misses the days when we would go to Asda or Tesco and get 4 bottles for a fiver!

Athos, who sadly lost his wife at the end of last year, is a chatty man so he engaged Rob and John in conversation so Di and I escaped to check out the flower shop next door and to watch the municipal workers pumping out the garden of the tyre shop opposite which was about 4 feet underwater!

The weather was improving, in fact the sun was out and it was almost tropical, warm and steamy!  We decided to go to the Old Town for some lunch - we were quite pleased because it was a golden opportunity to go back to Andreas's now it has been done up and we were sure that Di and Rob would not have been in there before.

We used to love this place when the old man used to run it - checked table cloths, filthy windows from the traffic outside, no menu and initially no toilets.  I had been in the kitchen on several occasions as he struggled to explain what was on the menu for lunch!

Today I had the most fabulous green lentil dish, Rob and John opted for Afelia and Di had a chicken kebab.  We were given plates of what at best could be described as a deconstructed salad, half an onion, half a lemon, some raw cabbage, olives, pickles, tomato and cucumber.  Afterwards we had something like fridge cake.  We were not disappointed, this was still the traditional place we remembered but brought up to date with nice decor, clean and well decorated toilets and clean windows!

We decided to make the most of the sun and take a stroll around the Old Town whilst we had the opportunity.  It is now a very attractive place and once the shops which closed during the works reopen it will be a fantastic place for residents and tourists alike.

It was here that we managed to see flamingos albeit in a craft shop!  The woman told us to go and see a couple of places nearby that had been done up as part of the regeneration of that area and we thanked her for her time.  Lots of the shops still close for several hours lunchtime - this still seems crazy to me particularly when businesses are struggling for trade and when tourists expect you to be open.

Having wandered around we decided to introduce Rob and Di to one other eatery that we used to frequent - it is a place we call The Garden as you walk through the kitchen and, in the summer, eat out in a quaint walled garden area.  It is a great place for a traditional kebab although there are other things on offer and today there was a large fish being barbequed on the coals.  The garden was basically shut up for the winter but we talked through and the proprietor ushered us to a table which was under some protection should it start to rain again which looked like it was a distinct possibility.

We just had some traditional Cypriot coffee here having not long eaten - we watched the proprietor's wife in the old kitchen behind John's shoulder heat up the Brickie and boil the coffee.  Four small cups of Cypriot sludge!  If you can master drinking Cypriot coffee life is so much easier if you are asked by the older generation to have coffee as that is what they expect to serve you.  It is such a small cup that you should be able to manage especially as a third of it is undrinkable anyway!!

Rob wanted to see whether the recent rains had had much effect on the reservoirs so we made our way back home via Akoursos where we stopped to take a look.  The water level still seemed very low to our untrained eyes although it had been reported that the reservoir in Argaka had overflowed but then we probably have had that bit more rain up our end of the island than near Paphos.

All in all we had a lovely day, not the day we had anticipated but it was good fun nonetheless and we get to do it all again in a couple of weeks when hopefully the weather will behave itself and we will get to see the flamingos after all.