With Jane and Bill to Famagusta, in Northern Cyprus, for the weekly market. Nice rural drive through Sovereign Base Area (British) and past a village deserted by Greek Cypriots at the time of division and now in Turkish Cypriot area but still unoccupied. Girl checks and stamps our visas at the border without pausing in her apparently social chat on the phone. Chilly, but we've dressed for it and it's pretty warm in the sun.
The market is a big one. Flowers and bedding plants as we enter. Very cheap, says one seller. Only one lira (50 cents CAD, 28p). But Bill and Jane's admirable garden is full and we could offer only a pretty limited lifespan on the balcony. So on to the market proper. Plenty of inexpensive clothing - jeans, jackets, children's wear - and all kinds of produce and meat. We buy lovely looking leeks and dark, fresh broccoli as well as some large mushrooms. Can tell when I taste Jane's dried apricots that we should have bought some of them as well - they're so plump and juicy they scarcely seem dried. J points out some dried berries that are labelled blueberries, complete with coloured illustration of same, and says that they can't be. Taste one and find it's a dried cranberry. Stop for Turkish coffee and then work our way back to the car, past nuts and berries and bits of jewellery.
Then to the old city. Its gone a bit upscale since we explored it fifteen years ago. Spiffier shops, a few sporting designer names, mixed in with restaurants, cafés, small tailor shops, and souvenir places. We pick our restaurant for lunch in large part because it looks sunny and sheltered. There are a few people eating at outside spots but it's a little cool for that to be a pleasure. The waiter asks if we would like the mixed meat plate and we agree with no clear idea what to expect. And what we get is a feast. First a large salad with feta and at least a dozen meze style appetizer dishes, both hot and cold, and delicious. It would have been a complete meal at that, but it's followed by an enormous platter with meat - chicken, meatballs, lamb of various sorts - and peppers, tomatoes, lemons, stuffed aubergine. There's also a plate of fat, hot, succulent chips and a basket of warm pitas. As with all Cypriot meals, there's no hurry. It's an occasion and is treated with the respect that good food and good company deserves. And we're fully appreciative and none of us lacking in healthy appetite. We do it justice but can't quite finish. How lovely that we said yes to a suggestion we didn't quite understand.
We don't have coffee at the restaurant but go to a bakery cum coffee shop at the bottom of the street, looking out on the old city walls. The bakery specialises in cakes, which are works of art - a hat, a crown, a car, mice with cheese, all as full size cakes with coloured hard icing. As well as smaller pastries and wedding favours and huge chunks of Turkish delight waiting to be carved. Unable to hold another morsel we're content to admire, but do stop at J and B's on the way back for coffee and some of Bill's cake. No need to eat again this week!
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