Cyprus

Promenades Ayia Napa is a tourist centre, and there are certainly a lot of places to walk. Everything is arranged to make tourists feel comfortable and enjoy the vacation. For example, there's a long waterfront promenade with all necessary facilities that starts from the port and reaches the famous Nissi Beach considered the best beach in Cyprus. https://youtu.be/covbDEMXYlo Evening walk along the promenade As for the Ayia Napa port, it's not very convenient to walk there, as many walkways are closed. The port is of interest due to a large number of diverse watercrafts, among which there are olde worlde [...]

Restaurants with Kids While walking around these three small towns, we used to drop in some cafes and restaurants. We visited some of them only once and were disappointed with the quality of food. However, others became our favourite spots. We enjoyed unparalleled Lebanese and Syrian restaurants, run by resourceful refugees, immigrants from the Middle East. We were impressed by the charm of those places, due to mystical atmosphere inside. The restaurants offer Eastern cuisine which is incredibly delicious. We hadn’t eaten anything like that before. When you’re inside the restaurant, you feel as if you were somewhere in Lebanon or [...]

Paralimni, Ayia Napa, and Protaras... Three villages in the south-east of Cyprus popular among tourists. It’s a real paradise of the wonderful island, where there are magnificent beaches with soft golden sand, a lot of places for walks, and great restaurants with decent cuisine everywhere. We used to visit the area quite often, so we managed to explore it well. Ayia Napa and its surroundings is a region where tourism is the main industry. You distinctly feel the seasonality of life here. In summer, the streets of the settlements are literally flooded with people from all over the world. There’s hustle [...]

Restaurants with Kids Southern Nicosia boasts the most interesting and flamboyant restaurants on the island. Since the main clientele is locals rather than tourists, the restaurants are interested in attracting and retaining visitors. Thus, they go out of their way to make their place alluring by means of gorgeous cuisine and live music. The locals love bringing here their foreign friends in an attempt to impress them profoundly. And they succeed! Many restaurants – especially in the area of the Famagusta Gate and the restored part of the Old Town – rejected menus as it’s more sensible to offer the guests [...]

Kourion and Kolossi Near Limassol, there's an ancient castle called Kolossi that was erected in the 13th century. It's formidable and monumental. The main tower with thick walls is enormous – 22 metres high. King Richard the Lionheart got married to Princess Berengaria of Navarre in this stupendous castle long-long ago. According to historical accounts, Berengaria – the only Queen of England that had never stepped on the English land, by the way – came to Cyprus to become Richard's wife. Here's why she had to come here: they got engaged with Richard, but the wedding was put off several times [...]

Akrotiri, Cats, and Lady’s Beach One of the largest beaches is Lady’s Mile. It’s situated on a sand and pebble spit, on the peninsula of Akrotiri, and stretches for almost 8 km (5 miles) from the western end of Limassol. It may almost be classified as wild, because there are a lot of areas that are completely empty and have no infrastructure and entertainments. Lady’s Mile is a vast, uncrowded, and long beach having both sandy and pebbly areas. People come here to spend some time alone with the sea, in the quiet, far from the city hustle and bustle. It’s [...]

Our life featured less Limassol than Larnaca where we lived for as many as 18 months. We stayed in Limassol when Helen was pregnant. We visited the city again with our children, but didn’t spend much time there. With all the time we spent there, we realized that Limassol is perhaps the most comfortable Cypriot city to live in. It has a well-developed infrastructure: myriads of shops offering a wide range of goods, a lot of resort areas and great beaches, high-quality service. Limassol is the second largest city on the island in terms of population. It’s a resort city that, [...]

Our Beach Time There were days when we didn't explore any spots around, just relaxed on the beach. Larnaca beaches can’t be compared to those in Ayia Napa and Protaras, but they seem to have been created specifically for kids. The sea bed is quite shallow and sandy, and the water is very clean. Like everywhere in Cyprus, there is neither seaweed nor jellyfish. Tourists usually prefer central beaches or the beaches near fashionable hotels, but we managed to find great uncrowded well-arranged beaches. We frequently drove to the English Dhekelia Base that still belongs to the UK. There are a [...]