Unable to procrastinate much longer on booking airline tickets. We get what is somewhat ambiguously referred to as less than 90 days in Cyprus. And we’re lucky that it’s not, like most EU countries, part of the Schengen Union. Outsiders get three months out of six in the Schengen Union and must wait another three months before re-entering. Will presumably start applying to post-Brexit Brits, though suspect many don’t know it yet, but that’s another and more complicated story.
Meanwhile we have to be on our way by very early April. Usually we’re here in late November or early December and some time in February take a visa ru - Athens, Rome, Crete, or wherever - and come back here until some time in April. This time we arrived in early January so there’ll be no coming back. But where? Someplace we already know or someplace new?
As I start googling, it strikes me what bizarre criteria we have. Where can we get a direct flight from Larnaca to? Are these places of any intrinsic charm? What is the price of the flight - and of central accommodation? And what time of day does the flight arrive. Thus I find myself dismissing destinations because an otherwise satisfactory flight arrives very late at night. Hotels are one thing, but looking for a previously unseen flat in the early hours of the morning is not a happy thought. We must be getting old. When we went to Spain the plan was to spend the rest of the night in the airport after a ridiculously late arrival and take the electric train out in the morning. Actually hadn’t booked a place to stay then either.
Gradually the place meeting most of our criteria merges. Sofia. There’s a discount airline going there too, one that’s been around for a while. Terrible website, though. Crashes and reloads more than once, displays badly, rejects apparently available seat choices, many etceteras. And as a final indignity bank rejects my credit card twice and J’s once, each new try involving significant re-entering of info. Probably know credit card number by heart. My card magically approved on third try lucky. So Sofia it is. Can wait until tomorrow to decide route back to UK. Which will be after March 29, so depending on Brexit terms, or lack of same, may be an entirely different dilemma. Glass of whiskey well earned.
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