Mr. Andreas, owner of the Sunflower, has announced a slight rise in our rent, generously allowing Kikki, the second shift manager to break the news. Apparently the municipality has imposed a new head tax (43 cents per person per night?) and so it is being passed on. There is a bit of vagueness about the explanation, and it does seem odd that a tax would be imposed without warning - though not impossible, and it does occur to us that it's midsummer before the Town of Sioux Lookout can say what the annual property tax will be and then it's due almost immediately.
Maggi has the address and phone number for the Cyprus Tourist Organisation's hotel inspection branch, left over from a dispute in which they supported her in not paying retroactively for a rate rise. It's apparently located a couple of blocks away above a bar called the Albatross. So we check it our but find no sign of it there. However the regular tourist office is happy to redirect us to the skyscraping new Nicolaides building.
On the way there we stop and chat with Vasken Terzian, the excellent former manager of the Kition Hotel. He's still working at the little shop there but the building itself is scheduled to come down in March. We tell him, truthfully, that the Kition was by far the best managed hotel we've stayed at in Cyprus and he seems a little embarrassed but pleased.
Then on to the Nicolaides building. It's tall, cleanly modern in design and, it seems, almost empty. Apparently, so Mr.Terzian says, bought by Arabs (Qatar, Bahrain?) who seem to feel no urgency about filling it. Of course money laundering springs to mind. The CTO office is on the second floor - but not open.
Lovely film, Little Traitor, on at eleven. It's Israeli (made in 2007) and chronicles a friendship between an occupying British soldier and a fiercely pro-independence young Jewish boy.
JAWORSKI TRAVELS