Cyprus Travel Guide

Travel websites and agencies show you only information related to South Cyprus. Unless you know about the political and cultural situation of the country, you will miss the many hidden gems in the less discovered North. The official Cyprus lies in the south Greek-speaking part. The unofficial Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, is called Northern Cyprus or “Turkish-occupied territory.”

I bet many of you dream of vacationing in Turkey and Greece but don’t have time. If so, why not try Cyprus? You’ll get the est of both worlds.

Trip brainstorm

This itinerary assumes you fly into Larnaca airport with a rental car.

Day 1: Sleep in Larnaca or Limassol

• <>Drive to the Salt Lake (right by the airport) and catch the flamingos.
• Walk along the promenade.
• Have Kebab at a restaurant at the end of the promenade, turn right and walk down a couple of blocks).>

Day 2: Sleep in Larnaca or Limassol

• Pato Leftkara and buy traditional lace as a souvenir.
• Visit monastery of St. Minas. Buy homemade marmalade, honey, pickles from the nuns or Orthodox icons from a small souvenir shop.
• Stroll the quiet streets of Kato Drys. Visit the Museum Garden Kamara House to see their collections of items depicting life in the past. There is a small room showcasing traditional Lefkara lace made by their grandmothers and mothers. Ask to speak with owners Jartovos and his wife. Maybe you can have tea with them. Buy their homemade Cyprus traditional sweet wine Commandaria, honey, olive oil, dried fig, syrup.

Day 3: Sleep in North or South Nicosia

• Walk along the border divider on the south side and observe the abandoned buildings, wall graffiti and men working in their metal workshops.
• Eat Armenian pizza (fresh, healthy and filling) at Ledra street.
• Experience the amusing border crossing on foot.
• Ask Greek-Cypriot soldiers and random men on how to get to the ‘other’ side and notice their responses.
• Enter the serene Selimiye Mosque to enjoy a moment of peace.
• Sit at the Great Inn (Büyük Han) to have wine and listen to music.
• In the evening, have a drink at a Nargile shisha bar.

Day 4: Sleep in North Nicosia. In the winter, St. Hilarion Castle and the Bellapais Abbey closed at 4, so plan your time accordingly.

• Make your way up the steep slope to St. Hilarion Castle (10 km from Nicosia on the way to Kyrenia). It is said to be an inspiration for Walt Disney’s castle in Sleeping Beauty. You will drive through meandering mountainous road to the car park, passing a ‘secret’ Turkish military quarter. Get fit and walk 700 steps up to the top of the castle and enjoy the fantastic view from above where you watch on the road that you have come up and the Kyrenia harbor you will soon drive to.
• Walk along the Kyrenia harbor, visit the castle and an icon museum.
• Have lunch at the harbor.
• Bellapais Abbey (Beylerbeyi in Turkish), a monastery of peace, a Gothic structure with beautiful Gothic arches and palm-vaulting and Gothic carvings. A friend says it is the most romantic spot in the evening.

Day 5:  Sleep in North or South Nicosia.

• Start early, drive along the unbeaten (tourist) path along the north coast to Karpas peninsula, passing through miles of unspoiled landscape of villages, fishing harbors, old churches, deserted and filthy beaches and a colony of protected wild donkeys. You might find yourself accidentally go through a really unbeaten path of a new road, still under construction and not opened to vehicles. You find yourself led by a Turkish driver, waving hello to every construction workers you met,  bouncing on dirt roads and glimpses of the water just right next to you.
• Have lunch at Turtle Beach.
• On the way back to Nicosia, see Famagusta old cities.

Day 6: Sleep in Troodos mountain or Polis-Chrysochous

• Make a brief stop at Kakopetria village and walk the cobblestone streets, see Orthodox monks socializing with village men and learn about wine making in a tiny village museum.
• Continue to Pato Platres and hike the Caledonia waterfall or others in the village.
• Have lunch at Psilo Dentro trout farm in Platres (closed in winter)
• If the day is still young, make your way to Omodhos, the wine region, the church with pieces of crosses.
• Drive to Polis via  Kykko Monastery (50 km) -> Starvos is Psokas (26)-> Lyssos village (20km) -> Pentahousa (3 km) -> Polis. (Orange trees lined up the last leg of the drive. Get a good dose of vitamin C for trip.)

Day 7 (sleep in Paphos, Limassol or Larnaca)<

• Have an easy day  Polis. Stroll the quite simple square and have fish meze for lunch.
• Visit Aphrodite bath (9 km).
• Arrive in Kato Paphos.

• Bring a Turkish map when driving in the North. Greek and Roman alphabet maps won’t help. The drive to Karpas peninsula should take only 3 hours, but we did it in 5 hours because we got lost using the Greek map.
• The breath-taking landscape from Troodos mountain to Polis is one of the highlights of the trip. However, you should dedicate half a day to this activity. In the winter, start early to stop and visit many interesting villages and sites along the route. Avoid starting the route during the evening.  The road becomes quite steep, narrow and curvy (sometimes almost 180 degrees) allows you to drive only 25 km/hour.

Trip Map

Cheap accomodation Cyprus

Transportation

• Low-cost flights from easyJet, Ryanair, Blueair, Flypgs, operate from Larnaca and Paphos international airports, the latter caters mostly to UK flights.
• Cyprus Intercity buses connecting Nicosia, Larnaca, Limassol, Paphos, Lamagusta for only €1.5 to 2.5 per single ride. (The site is in Greek only. Use Google translate to read it in English.)
• Cyprus is one of the rare European countries left where you can experience the Mediterranean rubber time, meaning people don’t follow a schedule – 9 a.m. doesn’t mean 9 a.m., it means 10, 11 or never. Forget to check for a timetable as buses usually, don’t go on schedule. There are buses going from the city center to the airport in Larnaca, but they are very unreliable; don’t depend on it. The manager at a hotel I stayed told me that he called the bus company and asked for the schedule to tell his for guests, and the company told him ‘we don’t know.’
• Most tourist sites are scattered outside of the city center, and public transportation is bad, you’ll see more of the country if you have a car or hitchhike.
• Cyprus probably has the cheapest car rental rate in Europe. If you travel in pairs or a group of 3 or 4, you should make use of it.  (Thanks to Cyprus, I came home and swore from now on I would never criticize the people who drive, ever again. This is the first country where I traveled by car and ended up visiting many more places than originally planned. That was incredible.)
• Yes, you can bring a rental car from the south to the north and only need to buy the extra insurance at the border.
• No, you can not bring a rental car from the north to the south.

Accommodation

Eat

Once you eat grilled Kebabs here, you wouldn’t want to eat the Donner kebabs when you return to your hometown.

Sample cost

Accommodation

• Hostel: from €8.5 / $12 per bed. Hostels are not popular in Cyprus, perhaps due to the country’s resort oriented tourism.  Kyrenia is the only city with hostels.
• Budget hotel (vary from cities):  €20 per room (double) in Larnaca, €16 per person  (double) in Kyrenia. Prices go up in Pafos and Nicosia.

Transportation

• A single bus ride between the main cities in Southern Cyprus: €1.5 to 2.5
• 7-day car rental:  €10/day + € 64 for gas + €20 (credit card fee) at Avis. (You pay € 64 even if you bring a full tank back. So fill up as little as possible during the last days)
• Car insurance when bringing a rental car from South Cyprus to Northern Cyprus: €20 (3 days), € 35 (one month)

Food

• Grilled Kebab (mixed, chicken, pork,…): € 5-6 (It’s so big, and with so much meat, even men are full. Ladies on a diet, watch out!)
• Beer: €2.5
• Fish meze: from €10
• Carrefour supermarket has decent prices for own catering

Photos from Cyprus

[slickr-flickr tag=”cyprus” type=”galleria” caption=”on” descriptions=”on”]

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