Monday, May 4/2020

Liberation day. Now permitted, during the day time Monday to Saturday, to walk more or less where we wish. Some shops open. Masks to be worn everywhere, and social distancing unchanged. Banks and pharmacies to follow regular hours. First destination is the bank. Have not gone previously as the nearest not our preferred. However this has left us using euros to buy food and during our time here the exchange rate has gone from 7 Turkish lira to the euro to 7.7 TL to the euro. Corner shop still working on 7 and hard to blame them as they will have paid for their supplies at old rates. Our bank a short walk outside the walled city. We reach it and find a queue of several carefully spaced people waiting outside. But J points to the cash point, where there is no queue. And no problem.

Back via the main square. A number of shops open, some pretty optimistically, as they are meant for tourists and carry jewellery or designer clothes and handbags. There really are virtually no tourists here, and it’s not the kind of souvenir buying we go in for. Do stop at a store we went to when we first arrived. It’s aimed at tourists as well, but of a different sort. Shampoo, souvenirs, some food basics, soft drinks, and quite an impressive array of booze - floor to ceiling along one whole wall and spilling over into the next aisle. Whisky prices not bad. Wine prices not exactly bad but mostly what they think tourists might recognise and want, like standard South Cyprus wines at higher than South Cyprus prices. Turkish wine a much better buy but not much in evidence. 

J does buy ground coffee and - interesting find - peanut butter at a much better price than the corner shop. Check the contents and find 90% peanuts and 10% carob powder. Tastes quite good, and seems to be a Cypriot product, which accounts for the price. Overall our corner shop is a better place to buy food, which is nice as it’s also handy.