A day out to beautiful Spilia...

We had a day out today with our neighbours Argy and Lakis.  We were going up to Lakis's family home in Spilia to collect a 'skafi' or traditional trough which had been cleaned and polished and given a stand so that Argy could turn it into a table for their home in Droushia.  It was big and heavy and needed some manouevering to get it into the car so John's muscle power was required.  I shall show you a picture when Argy has completed the transformation as she has plans...

Lakis also wanted to make sure that the house was secured and battened down ready for the winter as it is unlikely to have any further visitors this year.  He is lucky enough to have Polyvis locally who keeps an eye on the property (and who restored the skafi) and so today was also an opportunity to thank Polyvis and his wife by going for a meal.

We set off from Droushia at 9.00am and made our way up to Spilia.  We had planned to have a coffee at the nice little place in Kidasi called Oasis but sadly we were too early and it was shut.  We found some little local kafeneio en-route where we had a skerto (black unsweetened Cypriot coffee) before getting to Spilia.  It was looking very autumnal there and the balconies were covered with pine needles.  We had an ordinary coffee there, persuading Argy that we really didn't need any cake as we were having lunch!!  Polyvis joined us and the skafi eventually got placed into the boot of Lakis' car and we were then ready to go and pay our respects to various members of Lakis's family who are laid to rest in the local cemetery.

Spilia cemetery is so peaceful and beautiful and there is something very comforting about the care and respect shown to those whose final resting place is there amongst the trees.   Argy had made some floral arrangements from silk flowers which would last so much longer than real ones knowing that it might, for many reasons - not least Covid, be some time before the family graves are visited again.

The next bit of our day out sort of got lost in translation or something!!!  We had thought we were going for a meal nearby - certainly we knew that Polyvis had organised something as the taverna Lakis wanted to go to in Kakopetria was closed.  Polyvis and his wife set off in the car with Lakis following and we drove and drove and drove and drove until we could see the occupied territory and the bay near Morphou!!!  Apparently we had taken the scenic and circuitious route which eventually ended up at a place called Asinou which is famous for its ancient church.

Polyvis has a friend who runs an eating establishment called Forviotissa which is next to the church and which is massive (holding 1500 when full) however by the time we arrived we were the only ones there.

What we had anticipated to be a light lunch with some souvla and pastichio turned into pretty much a full blown meze with salads and dips and bread and potatoes and halloumi and loukaniko with eggs and mushrooms and liver along with the souvla and pastichio and then rounded off with some local glyko!  Argy and I just couldn't do it justice!!!

Sadly by the time we finished our monumental meal the church was closed so we only got to have a look around the outside and not at Byzantine frescoes which are indoors but we can always do that another day.  I was completely disorientated by the direction we had travelled so had no idea where we had finally ended up which was sort of due North from Limassol and not far from the border with the occupied North.

We followed Polyvis back to a spot where he turned off to make his way back home and we ours which didn't take as long as we had anticipated and so we were back just around 6pm to find Charlie sat outside waiting for us and his tea - unimpressed that he had had to wait two hours extra before getting his meal.

It had been quite a day but a very interesting one - lord knows how many kilometers Lakis had covered during the course of the day!!!