Nicosia

Fāinā told me "We originally opened a French restaurant in Makarios Avenue, introducing Lebanese cuisine after 2 years, but when we moved our restaurant here we switched to a Lebanese Restaurant with just a few French dishes as our customers were mostly locals.  These days its a more varied international mix as more and more tourists have discovered us.  As the years past, we found more and more of our customers were asking us to cook French cuisine for them".  She laughed and said "ha! but many restaurants cook Frogs Legs, but none can cook them like ours!  And, then she added; just wait til you try our Duck!"

The Lazy Day Cruise didn’t get its name by accident … it really is a lazy cruise in comparison to one or two other party boats that set sail from the same harbour. The Lazy Day Cruise is more designed for families who want to chill out on the med, much as the cruise caters for all ages and many who go on the party boats also book this trip towards the end of their holidays, because everyone has to chill sometime ...

I popped into meet Stelios and Eleni, inside its clean cut, minimalistic, Italian designer style, with wooden flooring, comfortable seating for around 25 people inside and a few tables outside for Al' Fresco dining … Stelios told me "we wanted to make it feel like Home from Home" … I loved the really cool photos chosen by Eleni, especially the one saying "Eat the Spaghetti to Forget your Regretti", brilliant"!

I asked why their beers are so good;  Taras explained, "The biggest difference of Craft Beer is it has more flavour and taste, mainly because it's not filtered or pasteurised, making it a much richer flavour.  Craft Beer is like a finger print because we never brew our beer in a bad mood, that's how we are here at Octo and we hope you are just like us" …

Stephanos said; "We got together often, looking for the best place where we could open an authentic Greek Restaurant.  We could have done it in Thessaloniki, but there's lots of Greek Restaurants there, so it was a calculated decision and we chose Larnaca because it reminded us most of Thessaloniki and then of course the weather here in Cyprus had something to do with it"

The location is wonderful, up in the hills, with absolutely stunning panoramic views overlooking the St. George coastline of Paphos.  There's over 100,000 square metres of lush green vegetation, ponds, flowers, and trees including the amazing Silk Floss Tree from South America, covered in thousands of spikes, it's just crazy !

My initial interest was to find out about their gins, Aris explained, "it's what originally brought us back to Cyprus, 'to create a quality craft gin'.  Our initial inspiration was the aroma of The Troodos Mountains after a long dry summer when it first rains and we wanted to capture exactly that and put it in a bottle and we called it Aoratas Dry Gin which in fact last year won a gold medal. 

With over 30 years experience, Dora's associates extend throughout Cyprus, her knowledge of the property market is just amazing and the list of services extensive to say the least.  Her clients know exactly what they'll get; an honest, reliable, trustworthy service built on an exemplary reputation to find you what you're looking for!

Vangelis said he had extensive training in Naples, not at collage but at an academy at a traditional pizzeria, with top pizza chefs.  The rewards; pizzas as authentic as you can get this side of Italy, the dough, 4 simple ingredients, hand made, but fermented for 48 Hours before use, a Neapolitan influence, which enhances the flavour, then topped with your favourite toppings and baked to perfection in a traditional stone fired revolving oven ... the result a thin base with a light fluffy crust ... I have to say they're delicious!

Pretty much every Friday and definitely every Saturday, and the day before a bank holiday they host live Rock gigs with big name international bands and the very best local Greek and English Rock Bands ... they even squeeze in a little Rhythm and Blues, Indie, Folk, and the occasional Reggae and Disco night too ... I've even caught them doing The Candy up on stage ... adding a bit of live comedy these days ... You'll love it here !