Sunrise over the Troodos Mountains

I was up early enough today to watch the sun rise over the forested slopes of the Troodos Mountains. The villa had a lovely view across Latchi and Polis, and early mornings were enlivened by the very distinctive call of a black francolin in our neighbouring field, though we never actually saw it. 

I loved being able to have breakfast on the terrace - freshly squeezed orange juice, Cypriot coffee and excellent brown bread with butter and wild berry jam. The binoculars were always to hand to watch for interesting birds - a large flock of hawfinches frequented some neighbouring trees joined by the occasional serin and blackcap.

After yesterday's long drive, we decided to have an easy day. Chris, pete and I visited Latchi beach again in the morning, and then all of us went up to Smygies for a picnic lunch. Although we had visited both areas on previous days, there were more things to discover, and the warm weather had brought a number of new species into flower. Perhaps the most exciting (and scary) of the discoveries was a false black-widow spider, which Chris insisted on picking up, even though they have a fairly strong venom. However he handled it carefully and it was quite docile. 

We visited the old village of Neo Chorio on the way down, where we befriended a very pretty cat. Like most of the villages it had a beautiful church and a mix of traditional, rather ramshackle buildings with interesting stone walls and picturesque doors around the centre, and a ring of newer villa developments for the tourist industry. 

The village tavernas didn't look open (though it was sometimes hard to tell), so we drove back to the Baths of Aphrodite for afternoon drinks, and then pottered around on the rocky beach below, which was an interesting contrast to Latchi beach, and gave Alex and Ben the opportunity to do a bit of stone skimming!