The Eleonora - our apartment hotel of last year - has a showing of its renovated flats, word having spread by mouth - or text. So we go to look, along with a small crowd of others, mostly Scandinavians. They´re not finished yet - in fact we must be contravening EU safety regulations as we explore unfinished balconies. Enough of the floor is still open that J can see that the plumbing - in terminal difficulty last year - hasn´t been replaced. And most of the changes don´t really strike as improvements - e.g. kitchen and bathroom layouts. It is going to have that new flat gloss - but a lick of paint and some new tiles and counter tops would have achieved the same effect for much less money. Winter stay prices are supposed to be 650 and 700 euros a flat monthly, a 44% increase on last year.
M&M come back with us for tea - the cafe where the five roads meet having waffled enough over the price of coffee that we give up on them - 90 euro cents last week, one euro fifty-four on the printed menu, and a euro even when Maggi inquires inside.
Then Margaret and Tommy Mann - from the Isle of Mann - stop for tea. They´re up from Limassol for the day, staying on a 4 week package. Luckily they check out the Eleonora renovations just as we´re leaving (they having stayed at the E last year). Nice catching up. Margaret had a kidney removed in October so she´s still recuperating - and unfortunately their Limassol hotel has had some kind of bug circulating.
JAWORSKI TRAVELS