The thing that struck me most about The Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) is that there are few travel guides that tell it like it really is. To experience a country on your own gives you freedom, but you can potentially miss many sights, so either go for a guided tour, or follow the trail detailed in this book.If you holiday in high summer, then sitting on a Mediterranean beach is what you are looking for. It is probably too hot to explore, but if you want to choose a place with the best exchange rate, you can't do any ...
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The thing that struck me most about The Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) is that there are few travel guides that tell it like it really is. To experience a country on your own gives you freedom, but you can potentially miss many sights, so either go for a guided tour, or follow the trail detailed in this book.If you holiday in high summer, then sitting on a Mediterranean beach is what you are looking for. It is probably too hot to explore, but if you want to choose a place with the best exchange rate, you can't do any better than TRNC. Food and drink are of high quality and low price.However, that is not why I visited the country. I am interested in the history of the place, meeting the people and experiencing the culture. Because the British were here for 85 years and left in 1963, TRNC has a wonderful feel of having been frozen in time. Driving on the left side of the road, stopping at familiar traffic lights and seeing speed cameras ready to catch the motorist who is concentrating more on driving than slavishly following an arbitrary speed limit, all help with that feel. Most people speak English too. There is a Muslim culture here, but the overall feeling is one of relaxed devotion. The five-daily call to prayer is mostly ignored by the populace.To see it properly, I decided on a guided tour. Our guide was a lady who has lived in TRNC all her life, but travelled widely in the English speaking world, so her translations were faultless. She was so good that I couldn't even trick her with our quirky phrases such as 'Know what I mean, John," and "Leave it out."We were taken to many of the major sites in the country and given a very good historic background to each, all from memory. I never saw her with notes. I of course took lots, writing them up on a handheld device each evening before the wine levels reached eye height, and it is these, along with a great deal of extra research that are summarised in the book.As with all my writing, there is an underlying element of humour - real life is funny enough if you look at it the right way.I have added my own photographs, so apologise for the price of this book, but this is the actual cost of printing. I hope you enjoy the adventure.As always if you do and think it worthy of top marks, please submit a review on Amazon. The encouragement does wonders for an impoverished writer!This is the colour photograph version of the set of North Cyprus books. There is also a cheaper one with monochrome photographs (North Cyprus - One Man in a Grey Bus) and a pocket guide that really will fit in your pocket, especially for keeping with you as you explore for yourself. (North Cyprus - One Man in a Pocket.) As with all of these, 50% of the royalties will go to Kyrenia Animal Rescue for their untiring work keeping the stray animals looked after and safe.
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