Today I got up at 6:15am, yuck, I hate this, am definitely not a morning person. Again a taxi down to Limassol to wait for the tour group - at 8:30 a jeep rolls up to the Hotel Miramare, and I meet Rico, our guide for the day, and the four other passengers, a young English husband and wife, and a mother with her 13 year old son, also English. I was lucky, apparently each jeep can take nine or ten passengers and sometimes there are eight or ten jeeps, but because we were so few, it was very comfortable, and Rico could stop more often and talk to each of us more. Also, because I was the only one by myself, I was in the front seat next to him. I offered to the others to change seats from time to time, but they wanted to sit next to their partner. So sometimes being alone has advantages.

We went first to a roadside cafe in a village to have coffee before we went offroad to see a Venetian bridge from the sixteenth century. There should have been water flowing (or trickling)underneath it, but it's been dry for a few weeks now, and the water won't come back until the winter probably.

From there we went through the Myriklini forest on a rough road alongside where the river should be, and after a while, as we got higher into the mountains, there was a small amount of water. This road came out near the famous Kykkos Monastery, where we visited the church and I, at least, the Byzantine Museum. I was wearing linen trousers and a fairly voluminous t-shirt with sleeves, but some people had to put on more clothes. I also saw a guy with a Kama Sutra t-shirt inside, which was technically decent, but I am sure not what they have in mind for appropriate dress.

We descended to Prodromos for lunch, and strangely enough it was the same restaurant where I went with Nicky and David earlier in the year. Great meze! With kleftiko, yum. Then we drove up to the summit of Mount Olympos, I haven't been so high before, as you can get really close in a four-wheel drive. We were right at the top of the ski lift, next to the British radar base.

Then came the scary bit! We passed through a "road closed" sign to go down this very bumpy track to the Caledonian Falls. We had to park a short way before the falls and walk ten minutes to the actual water. It wasn't Niagara, but it was very pretty, and certainly as much water in nature as I have ever seen in Cyprus. The 13 year old and the English husband got fairly drenched, while the rest of us took photos. I'm glad I bought that Cyprus airways camera!

Down the rest of the bumpy track to get to Platres and a bit further, to a family run winery, where we had tasting, and I bought two bottles for £6. They had just brought in the grapes picked that day, and we saw them go into the crusher.

We got back to Hotel Miramare just before 5:00pm, so I got here about 6:00pm, 11 hours of excursion. I might just go in latish tomorrow.......... and of course I have not stitched this weekend. I am completely zonked, but in a nice way, not in the horrible having-been-yelled-at-by-Dwarf way that I used to be.

Just hope I survive the week, Rosetta is back from vacation tomorrow, and I also have to remove all my stuff from the cupboards at work, and decide what goes back to Paris, then convey it to the hotel and my suitcases.

(PS Blogger is not letting me post photos, I'll do them later)