Our search for somewhere to live seems never ending, and as a new week begun, Monday saw us pounding the pavements and walking the entire city of Nicosia in search of a home. I say pavements but, as those of you who visit us will soon find out, Cyprus has a distinct lack of them, and where there are pavements, some fool has planted a tree in the middle. Its one of those things that you have to laugh about, until you get run over by a car cause your forced to walk in the road!
Anyway, as temperatures in the city hit 29 degrees, me and Harry took our search to the streets, and starting at his dad’s house in Engomi, we began our walk around the circumference of the city. The centre of Nicosia can be found within the ancient walls, which form a circle around the very heart of Cyprus, and using these as our map we headed into the old town and off to the other side of the city [To put this in context imagine walking from Waterloo up to Piccadilly Circus, across to Covent Garden and then east to Bethnal Green and back round to Waterloo]. The old part of the city, although rough around the edges is probably my favourite. While we wouldn’t want to live there due to its ghetto like atmosphere at night, it’s the part of the city, which screams character from every angle. The buildings are old and suntanned, and the materials used are traditional. The heavy wooden doors are engraved and adorned with intricate ironwork and the walls are weathered to within and inch of their life. And despite the war wounds of the Turkish invasion, bullet wholes are evident on most buildings in the old town, they are still standing today. Just.
Out of the old town and back into new shiny Cyprus we headed round to Makariou Avenue, the main street in Nicosia, and plodded up and down the many little roads running off away from the noise, cars and coffee smells. And after a pit stop for Burger King (our belly’s have been filled to bursting with Cypriot delicacies) it was back to Engomi. While I make it sound like a mini stroll it was more of a walking marathon, and a rough estimate of the miles clocked on Monday is 25.
This, however, was not the end of our walking. Our morning search turned up little hope of housing, so we headed away from the city centre, from Harry’s dad’s house to the edges of Engomi (While this makes it sound far, walking distance from Engomi into the centre of Nicosia is approximately 20 minutes). By this point it was 5pm and with the sun going down we decided to admit defeat. Wearing flip-flops for our day of walking was probably not my best idea ever, and as a result my feet and legs suffered. I thought this would be the end of our walking but Harry had other ideas and decided to take me on a walking tour of his childhood. So now I have seen the football pitch he used to play on, the primary school he went to, the walls he used to climb over with his best friend, and the kebab shop he ate at. And to finish our day, he decided to walk me to his auntie’s house, the walk he used to do every day after school. As much as I liked our trip down Harry’s memory lane, and our walk into the heart of Strovolos to his auntie’s house, his perception of distance and time is somewhat out. And when Harry says we will be there in 5 minutes he really means 15. I was promised a frappe at the end of our jaunt into Strovolos and I am still waiting for it. We found a handful of flats along the way, none of which are winners, but my bus stop tan benefited from a boost. Lessons learnt on Monday are a follows: bullet holes are forever, pavements are for plants, and flip-flops aren’t made for walking!
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