Day 7 Lefkara
Lefkara was recommended as an interesting village to visit. We set off along a route that took us over the mountains and came across a rock crushing plant. Luckily we had a P&M valuer on hand to tell us that at market value it was worthless, but replacement cost was well over a million dollars.
Lefkara is a silversmithing and lacemaking centre. so much of the handicrafts we saw reminded me of Mum's work. She had a glory box full of beautifully decorated napery.
Lefkara was a prosperous village with newly restored stone street cobbles. We veered off the main drag to look at some of the beautiful cottages that are still being used as regular housing, but in a sign of the times, a few had been converted into luxury boutique hotels.
We searched out the folk handicraft museum and had to surrender all our bags, including camera cases, before being granted entry. It was housed in a building that at some time must have housed a very well to do family.
In the courtyard there was an enormous daphne tree that filled the area with its sweet perfume. It was alive with bees. A little further down the road was a huge mulberry tree in fruit. I think another couple of weeks and those little red berries will be plump and deliciously sweet. What a shame we won't be here. Silly John did a little dance around the tree singing "Round and round the mulberry bush..." He got the lyrics a bit wrong but luckily Wil in Dubai set him right. I hope this advice was pro bono and that we will both be issued with an expensive bill for the legal opinion.
There were no shortage of restaurants in Lefkara, but all we wanted was a snacky meal rather than the full job. We eventually found a very pleasant spot under a trellis of trailing jasmine. The menu looked perfect, but when we tried to order, most things were off the menu as a school group had swept-in locust like and stripped it bare. The waitress was initially a bit unhelpful, but eventually offered that if we didn't mind waiting, the kitchen could whip up a spinach and fetta pie. The wait was well worth it and we whiled away the wait time with a delicious raspberry smoothie.
We came across an old storeroom full of the enormous clay jars that people used to store extra crops for the lean, cold months.
While walking the laneways, I saw a young couple using a pallet as a makeshift ladder to pick some lemons that were dangling over the wall. I helped to steady the "ladder" and he rewarded me with a huge, wonderfully smelling lemon, which I took home.
By late afternoon we turned for home, but decided to drop into Amathous to walk through the ruins near the Limassol waterfront. The one water-bearing cloud in the sky swept over the site just as we arrived, and the rain was solid, but it ended just as suddenly as it had begun, and we could soon begin our tour.
We told Helen that if possible we would swing by and see her old house in Agia Fyla. To my utter amazement, I could almost remember where it was. I was out by one street, but that mistake got us involved in a traffic jam that was crawling through the main street. Johnny persisted and we found it eventually. The house was gutted and ready for its next incarnation as Danae's house in the future.
Gin, Zak, Chux and Harri had landed in Lisbon and were about to be picked up by Sergio. I think it might have been a tough time for Ginny, who told us she had only slept 3 of the previous 36 hours. Hopefully we can give her a rest when we catch up at the Adega.
Dinner for us was going to be at Sequoia, a tavern down the Troodos road, but this time of the year it only had a lunch service. Luckily, John's was only a short drive away and the food was brilliant. I had "Babe" calamari, Britt had chicken kebab and Johnny had sea bass. I got chatting to the lovely waiter that has served us each time we have eaten there and found out that he was from India and completing his Master of Hospitality. He spoke impeccable Greek.
