{walking in} FOG: Cyprus - Protaras {Holiday on Holiday}

We decided to get out of the city and go away for a few days to another part of Cyprus, a tradition we affectionatly call going "on holiday, on holiday," coined by one of my neices. We usually head towards the north, where the waters are even warmer, the sea more crystal blue-green in color and the beach sand is a soft fine powder. This time we ventured to the seaside town of Protaras to stay at the Golden Sands hotel. The Golden Sands is what I would characterize as the best of everything you would want from an all-inclusive: rooms amenable to sharing with children, wonderful outdoor breakfast buffet, amazing pool area for all ages and direct access to an amazing beach. An easy walk into town gets you to a number of great restaurants and a mini luna park (luna parks are a very scaled down european version of arcade rides for the under-10's.)

Yes, it's touristy. They have activities in the pool area that they drag you off your sunbed for. There are balloon toss competitions and a theme song along the lines of "cheechee wah cheechee wah, cheechee wah wah WAH" that makes you want to gouge your eyes out within two hours. But..there is a time and place for touristy, which for us is defined by when you have two toddlers in tow that need entertainment. Against the backdrop of the mediterranean sea, we'll take it.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and headed down to the pool and eased into holiday on holiday:

Yeah, okay, my children HATE floaties. I got it now.

I had to crop this picture way more than I wanted to due to an excessive amount of strangers in speedos - you're welcome.

Terriorizing the resident cats.

Surprisingly, both boys wanted to spend more time on the beach than in the pool. Beach visits in years past have been quite disasterious. Sand was the devil itself as far as C was concerned and the beaches near my inlaws are not that clean (i.e. dog poop - blech.) But with sand buckets in hand and nice warm water with a shallow area that stretched out qiute far, they loved it.

Gratuituous picture for my dad.

Our sand castle building back drop. Infinitly more beautiful in person.

N almost fell asleep after I twirled him around in the water for a while. SO relaxing.

My boys.

We asked him to stand next to his sand castle creation so we could take his picture...pose is his own doing. Apparently he IS king of his own castle.

Don't mess with the king.

Besides the relaxing in the sun and keeping N from eating sand and drinking pool water, we ate. And ate. And ate.

Breakfast (Yiayia is blurry because a certain person put their little finger directly on my camera lense.)

Pre-dinner. They felt fancy because I actually combed their hair with a side part and everything.

Oh, N.

Yeah, I don't know either.

Yeah, that's spaghetti. All over the place.

On our way home we stopped in Larnaca for a visit to the Anorthosis football shop and to eat some of the best kleftiko (slow-roasted lamb that is cooked in a clay oven overnight) in the world.