Fall in love with
Aphrodite’s isle, where legend has it the goddess of love arose from the waves, and discover ancient
UNESCO-listed sites, wonderful
beaches and crystal clear waters. Although compact, this attractive island offers a rich variety of landscapes from pine-clad
mountains to golden sandy beaches.
The best holiday beaches are found around
Ayia Napa and
Protaras, where warm turquoise seas lap gently shelving sands and watersports abound. Thrilling waterskiing and even kite-surfing are offered at the main resorts along with fun-filled
water parks and boat trips.
There’s a buzzing neon-lit
nightlife scene in the main towns and a burgeoning
cafe culture in Nicosia, Limassol and on Larnaca’s mile-long beachfront promenade.
Cypriots are happiest when eating so join them for a
mezze, a slow banquet of Cypriot delicacies such as grilled
halloumi,
dolmades and
kleftiko, lamb slowly baked till it drops off the bone.
The stunning
Troodos mountains with Mount Olympus at its peak is the place to work up an appetite. With its charming hilltop villages and vine-blessed slopes, it offers a cool relief from the intense heat in summer and a chance to enjoy
hiking, cycling, bird watching and, in winter,
skiing.
Meanwhile, the rugged
Akamas National Park is the place to see unspoilt nature. It’s here that protected
loggerhead turtles return to beautiful Lara Bay each year to lay their eggs.
Venetian walls, Crusader castles and Roman mosaics, which appear at every turn, are testament to Cyprus’s
10,000-year history.
The opening of the border with
Northern Cyprus and removal of the barrier dividing Ledra Street in Nicosia, put in place when the Turks invaded in 1974, are reminders of its recent political past.
Cyprus has undergone significant modernization following its entry into the European Union. A
modern country with an
ancient history, its stone villages, glitzy resorts, scented citrus groves and perfumed mountains are waiting to be discovered.
GeographyCyprus is the third-largest island in the Mediterranean. The landscape varies between rugged coastlines, sandy beaches, rocky hills and forest-covered mountains. The Troodos Mountains in the center of the island rise to almost 1,952m (6,400ft) and provide skiing during the winter. Between these and the range of hills that run eastward along the north coast and the ‘panhandle’ is the fertile Messaoria Plain. The Morphou Basin runs around the coast of Morphou Bay in the west.
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