Limassol, Limassol, Cyprus
I started considering Cyprus as a destination I might
combine with a trip to either Germany or France this year. As an American I am only allowed to spend 90
days within a 180-day period within the Schengen Zone of open borders. With my
winter travels in Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland, I was going to be pushing up
against that limit. Cyprus fits, though, because it is not in the Schengen Zone
even though it is in the European Union.
That means when you fly from Greece to Cyprus, you have to go through
passport control. Cyprus’s appeal didn’t really change when I chose to make
Greece the primary destination on this trip.
Cyprus appeals on a number of different levels. For many
Europeans it’s a great beach destination with almost guaranteed good weather
all summer. But it is also a place with history and culture and possibly the
densest concentration of archaeological sites anywhere.
Cyprus remains split between the overwhelmingly Greek
Republic of Cyprus on the southern two-thirds of the island’s landmass and the
Turkish-occupied northern third, a place with a strange status in which it
claims to be an independent state but is not recognized as such by any country
other than Turkey.
So our time in Cyprus was entirely in the Republic with the
exception of crossing the border on foot in Nicosia to the northern side of the
city. There are apparently complications to taking a rental car across the
border.
Cyprus has a complex
ancient and medieval history, but its current conflict dates to 1570 when the
Ottomans took control of the island from the Venetians and about 20,000 Turks
settled on it. Ottoman control bowed to British administration in 1878 and full
British colonial control after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in WWI. Britain
granted Cyprus independence in 1960. It 1974 Turkey used a recent political
coup in Cyprus as a pretext to invade. It occupied 37% of the island’s landmass
and displaced nearly 200,000 Greek residents from the north to the Republic.
Cyprus remains a divided island today with a kind of no-man’s land between the
two sectors.
We had an early morning (dawnish) flight from Santorini to
Athens and then from Athens to Larnaca on Cyprus. Our time between flights was
so short that we barely made it before the doors closed.
Our seats in the last row, however, had been
claimed by a vile French hippie chick with greasy matted hair and a cap with
the phrase, “I’m Not Your Fucking Sister” on it. “Can you sit somewhere else? I’m tired from
long flights and need to sleep.” No, these
are our seats. You paid for a seat not a bed! She went back to where she came
from but then returned and asked the dude sitting in the row in front of us to
move. For some reason he did, so we were just a row away from the smelly,
repulsive creature for two-hour flight. Luckily,
I slept through much of it.
We made our flight, but at baggage claim we discovered our
suitcases did not. Rather than have them try to deliver them to us as moving
targets at our hotel rooms at far ends of the island, we decided to wait for
them at the airport because they would be on the next Aegean Air flight from
Athens in two hours. This wasn’t too bad, but it resulted in us starting our
touring a little later.
One legacy of nearly a half century of British control in
Cyprus is that they drive on the left side of the road. I’ve done this before in Scotland and it is
really not that hard to get used to when you are driving a car in which the
driver sits on the right. I suppose it
would be harder if you took your car from home to some place where they drive
on the other side.
Our first stop on the island (well, our first stop after
lunch) was at Choirokoitia, one of the three UNESCO World Heritage sites on
Cyprus.
Choirokoitia is the earliest permanent human settlement found on
Cyprus, the remains of a neolithic village dating from around 7,000 B.C. Now that’s old – Wow! While the site consists
of ruins of the settlements, at the base of the hillside several structures
have been constructed to demonstrate what archaeologists believe the round
dwellings to have looked like.
On the way into Limassol we stopped at the ruins of ancient
Amathous, founded around 1100 B.C. and the capital of one of the four original
kingdoms on Cyprus. The city flourished in Roman times but was abandoned in the
12th century A.D. as its harbor silted up. Amathous ruins are not as
extensive as might be expected for a city of its size because its buildings
were used as a stone quarry in the centuries after its demise.
Our highrise seaside hotel on the eastern outskirts of
Limassol was one of the nicest ones I booked on our trip. Our top floor room with
balcony looked out over the pool and the Mediterranean. Again, there wasn’t
much in the way of actual beaches in the immediate vicinity, despite a paved seaside
promenade.
There area seemed like a bit of a Russian ghetto, although many
people seeming to speak Russian may have been Ukrainian. Cyprus was apparently a favored beach
destination for Russians before their ability to travel was limited by war
sanctions.
We spent the next morning exploring the center of Limassol. Limassol
is a bigger and significantly more modern place than I had expected, one with
my highrise buildings along the shore, and old port full of small boats, and a
new Marina District with all things luxurious, including a automobile show
featuring Bentleys and Ferraris taking place.
Cyprus appears significantly more prosperous than Greece, confirmed by
its higher official per capita GDP. I supposed
it’s partly a legacy of British rule but perhaps also that the small country
with slightly more than a million population has become somewhat of an offshore
banking center and tax haven. Limassol
is supposedly the center of that financial industry.
There’s not too much to Limassol’s Old Town, the old Turkish
quarter with a few blocks of bazaar feel to it.
The main attractions is the very blocky-looking Limassol Castle which not
houses the Medieval Museum of Cyprus.
On leaving Limassol we decided we should stop somewhere for
a fast lunch. Rodrigo looked up McDonalds on his phone and we got directed to a
modern shopping mall with a food court with multiple choices. We ended up doing
Subway instead of McDonalds, and I couldn’t help thinking that it looked and
felt exactly like being in the U.S., particularly California with the palm
trees and dry mountains in view.
2025-05-23