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Phil’s Travels – Nicosia, Cyprus (12.25)

Phil’s Travels – Nicosia, Cyprus (12.25)

My ladies and I caught a super early flight to Cyprus for our Xmas visit and in seat 1A sat a man with more and bigger rings on the fingers of both hands than even the Queen had at her ceremonial and pomping best. The solitaire itself made the plane tilt to the left.

In no particular order, some of the notable moments during our holiday included:

• On a social media platform frequently watched by my darling daughter (aka Milady), she shared a calendar showing which dinosaur one should kill in one’s birthday month. My favourite dinosaur to dislike was thus perfect for my month, being that Purple Nasty that is far too happy in perpetuity to be of any good, namely the creepy purple Barney.
• The context will no doubt be lost in the mists of 2025 but at some point my wonderful wife eviscerated my confidence when she proclaimed to Milady that ‘He never does anything to make me happy!’ Such absolutes (‘never’ and ‘anything’) left little room for doubt and provided me and Milady with ample fuel for leg pulling throughout our stay.
• The humorous butcher’s best seasonal gag: ‘My cardiologist had a Christmas tree decorated with hearts, so I have decided to visit my wife’s gynaecologist.’

As per any trip to Cyprus with Milady, I duly assumed the multi-tasking role of a Milady’s butler to make happen every desire of Milady’s wishes, such as: passport holder, luggage Sherpa, airline pillow, royal bursary and chauffeur. Milady will be travelling solo soon and I will have a genuine holiday.

During our time in Nicosia, the incredible Yaya was subjected to further recognition events (a superstar of international repute that was also appearing on videos at the Imperial War Museum in London, as part of the Emergency Exits exhibition on the deadly struggles for independence in the 1950s in Kenya, Malaysia and Cyprus). This time, her status as the island’s first female journalist was recognised with her own display cabinet full of 1950s Yaya-memorabilia at the Journalism Union’s walk of fame.

There is no doubt that Yaya is a giant on whose shoulders many journalists in Cyprus stand and to whom the family looks up to. However, such metaphysical stature remains metaphorical, as Yaya is not so tall in actual centimetres. For example, when she rose to speak at the hall of fame ceremony, she was invisible to the audience and TV cameras. The lectern was taller than her. Her poor brother nearly ruptured a kidney and blew a blood vessel in his red face as he tried to suppress his giggles at the scene.

Yaya has such a presence, that on one of what seemed like daily shopping sprees to M&S, her rockstar-ship came with us and as she wandered around the store with her cane she looked just like Yoda, ready at a moment’s notice to fly through the air, performing back flips and triple salchows, to take on Count Dooku with light sabres should he appear suddenly from behind the slipper display.

We spent Xmas day at Pera village eating many types of kebab and barbeque. By way of a break, I took my wonderful wife for an explore. Some years ago, a brave chap went to Australia and learnt how to butcher and cook top quality steak and opened a steak restaurant in a tiny village not far from Pera (and eerily close to the TRNC border). The village (more of a hamlet really) had maybe 20 homes and no shops and this restaurant was in a house just like any other house. Sadly, it was closed by the time we found it. Getting back to Pera was a bit fraught as the Google Maps lady did not recognise the village of Pera, nor my brother-in-law’s address. Suffice to say, my wonderful wife was not impressed with the remoteness of the restaurant, nor with the circuitous, adventurous route it took to return in the pitch black of an Xmas night. As per above, ‘never’ ‘anything’ ‘happy’.

On Boxing Day, we drove up into the mountains for the Spilia pilgrimage. As we skirted the TRNC border (the Dark Side), to the north were huge, billowing, black clouds, lashings of rain and the most amazing double rainbows. To the south, the sun was shining, sky blue and there was peace on the light covered earth.

The high mountains were cold, bright, snowless, quiet, green and calm. Following the tour of churches and cemetery, we had a Mountain Man’s lunch at Chrysanthis in Kakopetria. It was surely the busiest restaurant on-island. The road and car parking areas outside were chock-a-block full. Queues formed outside the front door. Inside, every one of the over 300+ covers was taken. The owner, a relative, natch, said she was serving over 600 covers a day over the festive season. Maybe a few of those 600+ were family, the owner after all was one of 102 grandchildren!

The flight home was easy (not easyJet, just easy), no delays, lovely views (especially clear over the islands of the Aegean, Athens, Mount Olympus, the Italian east coast, Venice, the Dolomites, the Swiss Alps and then darkness). The views were so clear we had amazing panoramas of the busy skies above Europe. Every few minutes we saw passing jets, including a Turkish Airlines plane heading the other way that must have missed us by just a few metres. One second it was there and the next it was gone. I swear our plane wobbled in its wash. Or maybe it was the man in 1A back and moving about our aircraft?

Thus, despite never doing anything to make happiness, we had a lovely time. Yaya, the Yoda of Cyprus journalism and independence hero, was rightly dubbed a ‘bad-ass’ by her wonderful daughter, but Wonderful’s dissing of the only great steak restaurant on-island will not go un-noticed.