Myself and Carmen have visited Cyprus multiple times before, and we've both explored Larnaca to a degree as well. Last time I'd visited I'd seen more or less everything I'd wanted to in a day, and felt there wasn't really anything left to see. It's not like Paphos where you could easily spend half a day just looking around ruins in the sun.

This meant we'd now got two whole days with nothing planned other than at some point collecting our race numbers. We’d just let these days pass by with whatever we felt like. To start with though, we’d set our alarms for 07:00 so we could get out early for a two mile run that included a bit of sightseeing. The reasoning for this time was that it would in theory be similar conditions to race day, as it would be a similar start time. It also meant we’d be able to get to Edem’s Yard early for breakfast before it got too busy. Last year, Carmen had missed out on eating there due to the queues on the Sunday, and they close on Mondays. I’d slept a lot better last night, and got more than 50% more sleep than the night before. I felt my cold was already starting to disappear too after little more than a day.

We ran at an easy pace past the Archaeological Museum, and the giant nutcracker. We had to stop frequently early on though due to the busy road crossing. I felt that good with the running that I felt it a shame I’d not run last night. When the traffic eased we’d reached the Church of Saint Lazarus so stopped to photograph that, and then ran towards the castle, and down the side of that along a coastal path. At the turnaround point I stopped to take a photograph, and Carmen spotted Moneil - someone she knew, who would be pacing also. We stood and talked for a bit before finishing our run by heading back and finishing between the castle and the Djami Kebir mosque. I finished with the last ten or twenty metres being a quick blast of speed, just to make sure the legs were feeling ready for tomorrow.

We walked from there to Edem’s Yard, and fortunately it was still very quiet as they’d not long opened. Most of their breakfast menu is between about €7-11, and have a choice of savoury items involving egg, or sweet ones such as French toast or pancakes. I decided to have The Lotus - a pancake stack smothered in white chocolate, with a dollop of ice cream, a Biscoff biscuit and crumbs, and a small jug of Lotus sauce. It was so incredibly filling due to the sweetness of it that I had to have frequent sips of the lemon and ginger with honey ice tea I’d ordered too. Even then, I don’t think I ate half of it before I gave in. It cost around €13 each, so for a breakfast out I guess it wasn’t too bad - especially when you consider the size. It’s likely neither of us would want much, if anything, for lunch after that.

We headed back to the AirBNB via the 24-hour supermarket to get some water, and then stayed there for a couple of hours before heading back out into the sunshine. Carmen decided she wanted to see the ruins, so I led the way to Ancient Kition, the ruins of the old city that the Biblical figure Lazarus was said to have been the first Bishop of. I remembered my way there, even though I'd been remembering landmarks around the Touzla mosque instead. Fortunately I also remembered having seen it on the map,and remembered the main road. We didn’t go around the ruins, I think Carmen had expected there to be more to see than there was. I'd thought the same when I actually walked around them before. With nothing better to do, we then headed to Finikoudes.

The pier by the marina was being filmed on, so couldn’t go the full length of that, but we did walk the full length of the beach area, and continued past the castle, and sat on a wall for a while just past there. When we felt ready to eat, we headed in the direction of the Church of Saint Lazarus, with a pause to say hello to some cats - one of the most common sights in Cyprus.

We found Zouhouri Square, the one Carmen had been able to see with a large moon in from where she’d stayed last year. This year there was no moon, but we got lunch from the Cafe Nero that’s in the square. It cost €14 to get us both a hot drink, and a savoury pastry each. I had one filled with feta, and Carmen’s had feta and spinach. I think the feta on its own was too much cheese.

We spent a reasonable amount of time there, enjoying the relaxing day, with the only let down being the people smoking nearby. I don’t really remember this being a problem in other Cypriot cities. When we got going again we headed back to the church so I could go inside, but found it was closed for lunch and wouldn’t re-open for a while. The public washroom in this square was also closed, but there is also one in Zouhouri Square, located just behind the Cafe Nero.

As we were in the area, we decided to do our race number collection, and spotted the very dark cloud that had appeared. It was still there after we’d collected our numbers, and Carmen her pacing flag, and we felt some spots of rain on our walk back to the AirBNB. Two people along the way commented on the pacing flag I was carrying for her, and talked about the race.

We headed out again a while after that so Carmen could visit a craft shop to get some bits for her cross stitch, and some ribbon for Sunday. She’d got the wrong colour though, so would be back tomorrow most likely. If of course we remembered to go.

As it got close to 18:00 we headed out into the dark in search of food. I’d suggested souvlaki.gr as I’d seen their menu online seemed cheap for the amount of food you seemed to get based on the photographs. You can’t believe everything you see online, but it seemed worth a try.

When we got there, we decided to have a Traditional Platter between us which contained: 4 pork souvlaki skewers, 2 chicken souvlaki skewers, 2 kebabs, 2 sauces, fries, salad, and pita bread for €20.50. It was a great meal for the price; one that we thought could be good enough to go back to again if we couldn’t find anything else.

Being so close to the Church of Saint Lazarus it seemed like a nice idea to walk over to it so we could see it illuminated at night. It was nice to see, and once done we began our walk back. It would have been nice to have seen some of the Christmas lights on, but sad