More Fire and Fury in the Forties plus a Funeral, Fireworks and - of course - Football

 Two weeks into the stay and Greyrocks is firmly established, and has put the trauma of getting here behind! The heatwave that we had experienced in Cyprus also happened here but was largely over by the time we arrived late on 3rd, but was followed by a new one that is still with us, as shown in the data from the weather station.

It could have been the heat that caused beach-related incidents on two consecutive days. We arrived around midday to find a well-known Norwegian character hanging various items on the tree where our sunbeds have resided all summer for about ten seasons. We asked her to move her bag off of the sunbeds and she "went off on one", issuing nationalistic insults and threats. She occupied the shade so we went into the sea, returned and dried off and then went to the cantina from where we saw her walk off some hours later! She has has not repeated this ploy! Next morning Ruth's sandal fell apart as we prepared to leave for the beach A new pair was deployed. Later that afternoon the wind was getting a bit much so we went for a sandwich and alcohol-free beers at a famous beach bar. It was busy with locals, a newborn baby. friends of the staff and - in particular - two irritating dogs, of which all were making a huge fuss. We shooed away the larger of the two, and then saw it run off with one of the new sandals and start to chew it. Ruth went ballistic, immediately tried to pay whilst fuming and we left saying we would never be back!

On the evening of 13th we saw some smoke over the mountains, and whilst we were eating at The Seagull saw that there were now flames. We tried to deduce what habitations might be nearby, and sent a picture to  Chloë telling her that Anidri was under threat. By return came the news of exactly where it was: between the "crocodile" and Prodromi. She really does know more about Paleo than we do! The fire grew in width and height but fire vehicles got there and their lights could be discerned. At first light the special helicopter  dropped water to finally extinguish it. It was mostly low scrub and neither people nor homes were casualties. Within the last week there have been impressive fireworks in that direction, but at sea level. The suggestion is that these were bought in for festivals but could not be used for Covid reasons.

Another first for Greyrocks;- virtually attending a funeral! Last month we received the news that our old friend Josiane had passed away in tragic circumstances, Her funeral was to be conducted under Covid rules, so non-attenders were given the link to watch the Catholic funeral and burial, which we did on a very hot afternoon with a bottle of prosecco. In Kent we could see it began to rain and heavy overcoats were worn! A sad occasion, but technology made it possible to be a small part of it! RIP

And on a less sombre note we did decide to watch the Euro Finals! Location would be everything:- we wanted no English jingoism and to keep a low profile. Outside Zygos was suggested. We had our first Small Garden dinner in the run-up and set off to arrive at kick-off and not before. Misjudged! As we approached we heard the cheers for the England goal, and the viewing area was heaving with young locals. After a while we moved inside to a smaller screen, comfortable seats, AC and adult behaviour! There is nothing to add to the tributes to the team and management. We heard stories of much anti-English sentiment elsewhere in the village. Which brings us back to the opening of this post

Four near misses

 We are safely enjoying Paleochora and intend to continue to do so until our Schengen 90 days expire! Getting here was not quite the joyride we had hoped - but more of that later! Our obsessive news-grazing and our chats with old friends has led to the realisation that we have been lucky!

1. The horrific fire on Cyprus began as we left the island!

 

The previous post refers to the fires during the heatwave of our final week; but they were nothing compared to that declared the worst since 1974. Four Egyptian labourers lost their lives in this one as they abandoned their vehicle and ran in the wrong direction.

2. We also missed the fire in Kakodiki and the consequences!

Our taxi journey from the airport was at night so we didn't see much, but we did see a fire engine in a layby and this led to Giorgos telling us more about the fire that had happened a few days before. It was one of many on Crete during the heatwave, but the one that most affected Paleo with its damage to property, and resultant power cuts:- one of which was all day and evening on a "scorcher"!

3. We passed through Chania airport with ease!

After the Petri dish that was Paphos Airport, and a surprisingly full flight we got through Passport Control and received the necessary (gritted teeth!) stamp. We approached the health control point and were waved through without scanning of QR codes on either our Greek entry forms or our EU vaccination certificates. It was only in conversations over the next few days that we realised that we had been lucky not to be tested. Two British couples whom we have met here every year for a very long time (one of which is Sue and Brian Joicey) told us of their desperation to come despite the (then) rules that would catch them on return. Both had arrived on sparsely occupied flights from England and every passenger had been tested!

4. We are not on Fuerteventura! 

A lovely place we are proud to call "home", but the Covid data went "viral" almost as soon as we left!

It has been on Spanish Level 2 for a couple of weeks, and Tenerife is threatened with Level 4! There is no-one in the hospital with Covid and the number of deaths (13 in a population of 123 000) has not changed for months, but this is not good! As ever the blame is centring on our town of Corralejo and the young. Last night there was a gathering of around 300 in the Atlantico Centre and "goings-on" on Waikiki Beach!

Frustration, Folly, Fire and Fury as we hit the Forties (degrees C that is) !

We're having a heatwave! The yellow warnings for the island have kept coming for the past week, and everyone - locals included - is talking about it. Waiting staff, who are still required to wear masks when working, have been particularly frustrated!

 Last weekend for we non-workers was particularly worthy of note, starting with the frustration bit! We will be flying to Crete on Saturday and - with our shiny new EU vaccination certificates - there seemed no reason to wait in applying for our Passenger Location Forms (PLF) as required by Greece. We began on Thursday. We failed! Last year the technology had been new and the conditions different, but we had sailed through the application process and had no issues at either boarding in Madrid or landing in Athens. This time the site wanted passwords we hadn't got! We ran out of email addresses and had to open new ones, we cleared caches, turned ad-blockers and VPN on and off, restarted repeatedly and still by Saturday morning we had got nowhere and there was discord in the apartment! The bizarre way round this was to get Chloë to do it on her machine with an unused email address. We booked a time for WhatsApp and Bob took himself off to save his sanity with a beer and a read at the pub with the parrot that is a hot 15 minute walk away.

Ruth went for a swim and returned to sit in a wet swimsuit exchanging with Chloë. At one point she went from phone to laptop to look up a code and saw Bob's wallet sitting on the desk! Visions of him being forced to do the washing up prompted the still-wet Ruth to contact him and be persuaded to join him. The place was full of retired Brits - some of whom were complaining about other retired Brits! We had a great sandwich and some prosecco to celebrate that with the Greek bureaucracy now in action we could leave Cyprus!

We sat at a distance and it gave a full view - beyond the building sites - of the foothills of the mountains. There was a very large  and low cloud, which was slowly turning black from the earth upwards. The fire was the first and most serious of the week, and was attended by helicopters with dangling water tanks, Two houses were destroyed. 

That evening we went for an excellent Indian meal and then picked up a bus to take us to the harbour. It got stuck in an enormous tailback.  One factor was the re-routing of the bus station diversion and huge confusion over entrances and exits to the car park. Another seemed to be that the heat had brought out large numbers of locals for a super-volta.  Hordes of families straggled across the prom shouting at each other or on the phone, And not many masks about! We got into the backstreets as soon as possible avoiding illegally parked cars and headed for The Rose pub, where there was the promise of live music. "Whatever is it like in a normal summer?" was asked a few times!

Bliss and rapture! Greyrocks can't remember when we last saw rock being played by a band with drums! It might be eighteen months ago (Straight Ahead?) Here was The Real Thing and that is their name. Bulgarian and doing Clapton, B B King, Dire Straits and Pink Floyd. We sat at an airy table outside with a side view and good sound and loved it. Then around midnight they stopped playing mid-number! A Russian had marched in screaming about the noise, wanting an immediate end, and a heavy - but non-violent scene erupted. His partner sat on the other side of the road filming! The Bulgarians spoke some Russian and the fact that the music was due to finish in half an hour may have been conveyed! Somehow this was resolved and a few more numbers were played; but a nasty taste.... 

The rest of our time here has been less eventful, but there will be some sort of overview of the seven weeks here! This evening we start the summer in earnest as we fly to Chania! And the heatwave is forecast to abate!

Now that IS progress!

 As the news from the "culture war" zone  that is post-Brexit Britain gets worse, Greyrocks salutes its home: A little island that is part of Spain, that is a co-operative partner in the EU!

Not only has it made us welcome and given us the residency card that gives us a few more  rights to move around Europe, but it has really "done the business" for us in terms of Covid vaccinations. Spain was a keen proponent of an EU-wide document showing vaccination. Eventually members agreed that they would each work towards July 1st for a start date. As Greyrocks monitors the Canarian press daily we read that Spain would be ready much earlier. The time difference meant we we were a shade too early on release date, but returning later we logged on, used our digital signatures and received the certificates back by 10 am!  Apparently 10 000 others had got theirs by 2pm. Wow!

"... nice when it's finished!"

 1. Harbour Bus Station

Apparently it used to be like this!

The network of local buses in Paphos is a wondrous thing! It has been vital to Greyrocks and ought to have reduced the number of hire cars; but, of course, it hasn't! It is cheap (EUR1.5 per ride or EUR5 for a day ticket), Covid secure and reliable. The end of the line for most routes is the bus station at the harbour and little port, near to where a lot of the eating and drinking action takes place.  We have now learnt to get off at the stop before that, as our first journey caused us to refit our recently removed face masks to protect us from the dust! There has been major renovation and building work going on since March. The "bus station" has been operating without permanent buildings, suitable surface, delineation, information, seating, pedestrian crossings or shade, and the rest of road traffic is diverted through it because of the archaeological park works (see below) Changing buses has been less than pleasant. Especially dire have been a couple of occasions when night had fallen, and there was no lighting so one struggled between fences, up and down surfaces and round untrimmed foliage! To top it all our bus sneaked out without warning from behind another and we missed it! On Sunday we took the 603B and it stopped along the road beyond the terminus. There were to be three days of even worse disruption whilst resurfacing was taking place! It was completed on time, but with only half open, and then on Friday there it was: fully delineated, and with signs of further improvement. In the space of that day some seats and awnings arrived! The surrounding roads and pavements are still a mess, but hey!

2. That thing in the Archaeological Park

WTF?

Paphos was the European Capital of Culture in 2017. Kato Paphos- also the resort area - is dominated by its archaeological remains, which are impressive, and our visits there are the subject of a subsequent post. As our frequent bus trips with their long detours took us near various bits of the "park" we were intrigued by disjointed but similar iron structures. 

We speculated for days before Mr Google informed as that it was "The Kato Paphos Bridge". The rationale for this is shown in the current free (French) plan of the archaeological park! The North-South road is a key and very busy route that bisects the site. The bridge will link the two parts for paying visitors as a pedestrian path (not as once suggested a monorail!) During the works the road through is closed causing hold-ups and bus detours, and only the western section of the park is open. Greyrocks found this out when trying to make their visit.

We had thought we could get in at a gate halfway up, but No! We had already unknowingly experienced another effect of the closures, when we decided to take a stroll down memory lane by locating "The Handkerchief Tree", which featured in all our three previous visits *Xmas 89, 90 and 91). This is part of the St Solomon's Catacombs, and will be incorporated into the park "when the work is over", but is currently free and reasonably accessible. Our two photos and this Trip Advisor comment say it all! 

Where's your Hankie?"

   3. Apartment Blocks in "Universal"

We are now into our second week at the "economy" accommodation that follows the "luxury" half of the seven week stay! It is in a part of Paphos known strangely as "Universal". It is not near the sea, the bus service is hourly (with gaps") , shopping is limited to quite a lot of convenience stores, and we have only recently found a restaurant-bar within a ten minute walk. But we like it!!! It is definitely another instance of "work in progress", with dozens of building sites - mostly apartment blocks with glass-fronted balconies. We have not expressed an interest!

 

On the planet for as long as Keo beer!

A Good Year!

 Several buses in the Paphos fleet have a complete exterior side celebrating 70 years of dominance in the Cyprus market for this iconic brew! The precise same anniversary for Ruth happened during Greyrocks' ten-day extended stay in the Paphos hotel. We have now moved on to simpler accommodation, but "more on that later"! She joined the extensive band of those whose special dates could not be celebrated as anticipated because of the pandemic and restrictions. In Ruth's case add the effect of *************** Brexit!

There should have been a modest "do" in a South London garden. That became a restaurant meal for six in Bristol, and then to avoid self-isolation in England, and because of the 90-day rule it had to be in a non-Schengen country such as Cyprus, with just Greyrocks involved! We did our best! We began with Bucks Fizz on the balcony, then breakfast in the usual (good) buffet deviating from the previous 21 mornings by having omelettes cooked to order. 

We spent much of the day beside and in the pool, and Demis the barman offered us two beers on the house. We popped out to the British-themed restaurant down the prom and after the modest bacon sandwich we were brought with some ceremony a decorated warm brownie with ice cream to share! In the evening we dined at a local Italian, and afterwards went to our hotel bar hoping to find someone for whom to buy a round. Deserted! But the Romanian barman there gave Ruth a free traditional brandy sour! 

And now we are both septuagenarians.

Cyprus in a pitta shell - part 2!

 During our Christmas visits 1989-92 we stayed in a modest complex of apartments in a perfect position on Kato Paphos (that is the "lower" part of town near the small harbour) On our walks with the buggy we would marvel at the only big hotel - the Annabelle - which was at the start of a run of small beaches. This part of the coast of 1.7 km now houses 20 huge hotels with a very pleasant dog-free promenade between them and the sea.  Half of them are fully closed at the moment, and some clearly have very few guests. Just three companies between them own almost all. Some are 5* and some 4*, and there are some very elegant designs, novel features to the pools. and flash styles of sunbed on concrete or grass; but that is where guests will do their sunbathing, since the "beaches" - which are all public are "nothing to write home about"! Rocks, weed and tricky access are a deterrent - even where one's "native" hotel has installed bits of furniture (which is private) The serried ranks of the sunbeds at the big hotels is one of the reasons we feel lucky to be in the rather smaller place where we spent 23 nights. It is reviewed on booking.com The other is the distance from the social centre.

The quest for half-decent beaches continues, We found Rikko Beach and went on consecutive Sundays. It is the only place where we have wanted to enter the sea! A longer bus ride took us to Coral Bay, which was more promising in natural terms but had no facilities or furniture, and a lot of messy work going on in preparation. We had passed a very brash set of bars etc, so we moved on a bus stop or two, had a beer and a long chat with a waitress of British descent and took the bus back! More recently we tried Faros (lighthouse) Beach. An interesting area with the archeology, old lighthouse and coastal path - but the beach? It was a warm day and people were trying to get into the sea and coming straight out. We will struggle on from our new accommodation, We realised that during those three previous holidays on the island the weather was so bad, and the offspring so young that none of this mattered! We also recalled that this time we had seen some of what Larnaca has to offer and it looked "normal" seaside standard! We might have to go East next time: Agia Napa beckons!

What cannot be denied is that the weather has been glorious! On one day there was a spot of rain, and on about three or four there has been cloud cover worth noting. The wind is predominantly from the West, and can get a bit frisky, but Greyrocks spends most of the year in either Fuerteventura or SW Crete:- both renowned for wrecking people's holidays with fierce and continual wind! It was a relief to leave behind that evil North wind, and we conclude that Cyprus has a somewhat longer sunny season than Crete.

With the revised schedule we are just about halfway through our extended stay and still smiling!