Limassol (Cyprus)

...about 4 to 5 hours. Limassol is on the south coast and is a more or less equal distance (about 40 miles) from each of these airports, a little under an hour by car from either. Most people seem to take package holidays here, inclusive of flight and accommodation. I could see why this is when I booked my flight from Bristol to Larnaka, as the cost of the return flights I looked at was often equal to or greater than the cost of a package. I already ...
...was told a taxi to Limassol would cost about £40 each way for up to 4 people from either Larnaka or Pafos airports and can be pre-booked from the UK online. Our hire car cost about £15 per day for a largish Toyota with air conditioning but it's possible to hire a small car for a week for very little more than the cost of a return airport taxi.


◄ Getting Your Bearings ►

I was surprised by the size ... more

In late October/early November 2007 I took my first holiday in Cyprus, a fairly large island at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean, close to the coasts of Turkey and Syria. I stayed in Limassol, also known by its Greek name of Lemesos, the second biggest city in Cyprus after the capital, Nicosia.

◄ Getting There ►

There are flights to Cyprus from most of the major UK airports, either to Pafos airport in the south west of the island or Larnaka in the south east, taking about 4 to 5 hours. Limassol is on the south coast and is a more or less equal distance (about 40 miles) from each of these airports, a little under an hour by car from either. Most people seem to take package holidays here, inclusive of flight and accommodation. I could see why this is when I booked my flight from Bristol to Larnaka, as the cost of the return flights I looked at was often equal to or greater than the cost of a package. I already had accommodation arranged as a relative of mine owns a house in Limassol. I managed to get a flight with Eurocypria Airlines for £265, the cheapest I could find. When working out your timing it's worth remembering that Cyprus time is two hours ahead of GMT.
We had a hire car waiting at the airport but I was told a taxi to Limassol would cost about £40 each way for up to 4 people from either Larnaka or Pafos airports and can be pre-booked from the UK online. Our hire car cost about £15 per day for a largish Toyota with air conditioning but it's possible to hire a small car for a week for very little more than the cost of a return airport taxi.

◄ Getting Your Bearings ►

I was surprised by the size of Limassol. It's a big, sprawling town and gives the impression of somewhere more populous than its statistic of 135,000 inhabitants might suggest. The sea front stretches for over 10 miles and there are major roads with heavy traffic. Away from the sea front there are large commercial and industrial areas and much new building in progress. There is no train service in Limassol, indeed there are no trains in Cyprus. There is a bus service within Limassol and buses run to Nicosia and the other major towns. Buses generally run until midnight during the tourist season and until about 6 pm out of season. Taxis are readily available but hiring a car is advisable if you want to travel around to any great extent. A car will enable you to do plenty of sightseeing around the island and to get to the less easily accessible beaches and mountain villages too, so it's well worth considering. Traffic drives on the left and road rules are generally similar to those in Britain. The car seems to be king in this town. It's perfectly possible to walk around but it's not one of the most pedestrian-friendly places I've come across. Getting from the town to the beach, which stretches for miles, entails crossing a busy main road where the traffic tends to travel much too fast and I wasn't surprised to see the mangled post-accident wreckage of a car on the sea front pavement one afternoon. Traffic frequently chokes the narrow streets of the old town and cars park on the pavements, often forcing pedestrians to walk in the road. A lot of the pavements are in a very poor state with potholes, cracks and other hazards, so you really need to watch your step.

The old town and the city centre are on the west side of Limassol, with the "tourist area" lying to the east. The west end is busy and bustling with the comings and goings of daily city life, whilst the east end is dominated by modern hotels, apartments, restaurants and bars. The distance from one end of Limassol to the other means it is not really practical to walk between the two.

◄ Practical Matters ►

**Weather**
Given its location in the Middle East, it's not surprising that Limassol has a hot and sunny climate through much of the year. When I was there in late October and early November the daytime temperature was around 30 degrees Celsius with unbroken sunshine and it was warm enough to go out at night without any heavy clothes. It can be much cooler at that time of year though and I was told it was unusually warm. There can be heavy rain during the winter.

**Currency**
The Cyprus Pound is in use until next year when the currency will become the Euro. Shops and restaurants displayed prices in both currencies when I was there. The exchange rate I was getting at the time was 81 Cyprus cents to the pound sterling. The prices I mention from here on are in Cyprus pounds, so add about 20 to 25 per cent to convert to sterling.

**Accommodation**
Limassol has every type of accommodation to suit every pocket. The old town/city centre area seemed to be the place to go for smaller hotels and also for apartments in older, traditional Cypriot buildings. The tourist area on the east side of town has massive modern hotels, some of them right on the beach and some carrying four and five star ratings, as well as big purpose-built holiday apartment blocks.

**Services and Sanitation**
The Limassol tap water is safe to drink. Some places, including the apartment I stayed in, have an extra cold tap for drinking water and it tasted a bit better and less chlorinated than the water from the ordinary cold tap. I discovered this by drinking the water from the wrong tap for the first three days until someone told me. The large cylinders you see on most Limassol rooftops are for solar water heating.

The toilets I came across were all the modern sort we're used to in Britain and unlike some of the Greek islands I've visited, you're allowed to flush paper down the toilet.

I congratulated myself on remembering to take a European electrical plug adaptor with me only to find that Cyprus uses the same 3 pin plugs as the UK.

**Communication and Safety**
English is spoken widely and the things you'll want to read, such as signs and menus, are generally in English. I found all the Limassol people I encountered to be very friendly and helpful. I was told that there is a very low crime rate here and I felt perfectly safe walking around all parts of the town, even late at night. There is apparently some credit card fraud here, particularly in some of the more dubious nightclubs and topless bars.

**Dust**
I noticed that many parked cars in Limassol were covered in a thick film of grey-brown dust and there was also a coating of dust on the railings of the balcony in my apartment. Apparently Cyprus experiences storms of fine sand and dust carried on the wind from Africa several times a year. Although I wear contact lenses, fortunately I didn't suffer any eye irritation from this.

◄ Eating Out ►

There is a vast selection of places to eat and drink in Limassol. In the tourist area there is a seemingly endless line of bars and restaurants along the sea front road, many of them huge establishments capable of seating hundreds of people. Some are traditional-style tavernas selling Greek and Cypriot dishes with tables outside; some are those ubiquitous global brands such as MacDonalds, KFC, Nandos and TGI Friday. Some offer specialised themes, such as kebab houses or fish restaurants like the High Chapparal Fish Tavern, which apparently has been trading for nearly 40 years. Some are international, with a number of Chinese, Thai and Japanese restaurants, including a huge Japanese place imaginatively called "Tokyo". Most of the restaurants in this area had big, bold, brightly lit signs that may as well have said "tourists this way please". And what are they like beyond the brash facades? I've no idea; I didn't try any of them.

I opted instead to try the restaurants in the old town on the western side of Limassol and some on the edge of town in the hope of finding something a little less touristy. This strategy met with mixed results. On the recommendation of some British ex-pats we tried a restaurant on the outskirts of town on one of the roads leading towards the Troodos mountains. We were told that kleftiko, the dish of slow-cooked lamb, was the thing to try here. It came accompanied by dishes of chips, baked potatoes and a Greek salad of lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber, feta cheese and oil dressing, which is known as "village salad" in these parts. It was not bad but I have eaten better kleftiko in Greece. The cost was a reasonable CYP£5.75 each and a bottle of local red wine cost about the same. It was warm enough to eat at an outdoor table at 9 pm on a November night - amazing!

A very good omelette with chips, village salad and a basket of fresh bread cost me just CYP£3.75 at the Old Ship Inn on the sea front. At another sea front restaurant, Le Bistroquet, I had some of the best moussaka I have ever eaten. The bill came to under CYP£6 including salad, bread and a Keo beer, one of the local brews. I was given a complimentary shot of the fiery Greek spirit, raki, along with the bill too. Rashly, I enthused about this place to the rest of my party and we turned up there two nights later with high expectations. It turned out to be awful the second time; the service was slow, the food arrived cold and had to be sent back and even when it was returned to us fresh from the microwave it tasted mediocre to put it kindly. The local wine was overpriced at CYP£9 a bottle too.

We enjoyed a much better experience at the Meze Taverna in Agiou Andreou (St Andrew's Street), a small, family run restaurant specialising, appropriately enough, in meze. Meze is a selection of small portions of typical local dishes and is a good introduction to Greek or Cypriot food, as it allows you to sample lots of different dishes. Usually a minimum of two people can order this to share. This restaurant offered a meat meze at CYPR£8.75 or a fish meze at CYP£11.25 per person and three of us chose the meat meze. To start with we were brought a basket of hot, fresh pitta bread, a bowl of olives, pickled chillies, chicken liver pate, taramasalata and half a dozen other dips and snacks. There followed wave upon wave of dishes: lamb cutlets, skewers of lamb, pork and chicken cooked in different styles, spicy Cypriot sausages, several different kinds of meatballs, baked feta cheese, pork ribs in red wine, bowls of chips and village salad and a host of other meat and vegetable dishes. On and on it went until we just couldn't eat any more. Everything was fresh and delicious and we would have returned but they were fully booked for the next two nights.

◄ Things To Do in Limassol ►

**The Beach**
Limassol has miles of sandy beach with safe swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Beach umbrellas and loungers are available for hire at a fixed charge of CYP£1.25 each and they came with a bowl of water for rinsing the sand off your feet. There were little bars at regular intervals along the beach front selling food and hot and cold drinks, including alcohol.

**Municipal Gardens**
This lovely park on the sea front has big trees offering shade from the scorching sun and good play facilities for children, including slides, swings and even little electric cars for hire. There is also an open air theatre in the park where regular outdoor concerts are held. I took a look at it and was surprised to see it had about a thousand seats (at my guess) laid out in a banked amphitheatre style and a large stage. Guide books also mention a small zoo in the park but I could see no sign of it and was told it has either closed down or is about to. There are several cafes in the park with outdoor seating. The annual wine festival is held in the gardens every September.

**Shopping**
Limassol has plenty of the usual souvenir shops you would expect to see in a seaside resort but being a fairly large city it has much more to offer, including a Debenhams department store in the tourist area and a vast Carrefour hypermarket on the edge of town. There are supermarkets and high street shops aplenty, notably large numbers of shops selling shoes and leather goods. I noticed a lot of unusually big bakery shops, including some called the German Bakers, where there was an excellent selection of bread, cakes and pastries. In the old town I also saw a number of small tailor's shops, some offering to make you a bespoke suit within 48 hours, usually and somewhat bizarrely with no sample suits or even sample cloth on display.

**Bars**
There are hundreds of bars (and lots of nightclubs) to choose from, especially as most restaurants and tavernas are happy to serve you with a drink without having to order food. Drink prices are a good bit lower than in Britain. The locally produced wines are quite drinkable. Keo and Carlsberg beers are brewed on the island (both breweries offer guided tours) and other beers such as draught Guinness are available. A lot of the larger sea front bars have big-screen televisions showing football or music videos. In the little bars in the old town you're more likely to be watching a couple of elderly local men playing backgammon.

**Sculpture Park**
A long stretch of the sea front running east from the harbour has no beach but provides a pleasant place for a walk by the sea wall. There is a grassy, tree-lined strip of land alongside known as the Sculpture Park with plants, fountains and a series of modern sculptures at regular intervals providing a bit of cultural interest as well as some photo opportunities. When I walked along there on a Saturday afternoon there was an outdoor market selling mainly clothes.

**Limassol Castle**
At the east end of the town, near the harbour, is Limassol Castle, where it is said that Richard the Lionheart married his Queen in the 12th century. It was apparently used as a prison until well into the 20th century. Although the castle is neither a big nor a beautiful (in my opinion) building, I enjoyed walking around inside and it's worth the CYP£2 entrance charge. The castle now houses the Byzantine and Medieval Museum of Cyprus. The exhibits date from the late Roman era through to the 19th century and are mainly armour, guns and pottery from all parts of Cyprus. It is quite small and I found I was able to take a good look around in half an hour or so.

**The Castle and Harbour Area**
The area round the old fishing port and the castle was my favourite part of Limassol. The minaret of the Cami Kabir mosque is prominent and around it there are some fascinating shops and market stalls as well as traditional cafes and bars. The Sea Sponge Exhibition Centre near the port was closed when I went but from what I could see from the front of it, it has shells, sponges, stuffed sharks and the like on show. I was keen to visit the Lanitis Complex behind the castle, having read about it before my visit. The complex has been developed from the former Limassol Carob Mill and includes some very smart cafes, shops and restaurants as well as the Carob Mill exhibition itself. The showpiece of the complex is the Time Elevator, a Disney-style ride taking you on an audio-visual trip through the history of Cyprus and described in my guide book as "a world-class, purpose-built visitor attraction using state of the art audio-visual technology". I set off in search of the place to find that strangely it was not signposted at all. When I found the Lanitis Complex there were no signs in English and there was no mention of the "world-class attraction" that is the Time Elevator. The doors of the main entrance to the complex were locked but the restaurants were open so I went in and asked a waitress about it. She told me that the main exhibition was closed for a christening party but I could look at the carob mill exhibition and she duly took me in through a side entrance where I had a walk around entirely on my own. The machinery of the mill is on show with some information about the history of it and the products, such as animal feed and chocolate substitute, that were made from the processed carobs. Quite interesting but what of the famed Time Elevator? I spotted the entrance doors with the "Time Elevator" sign above and pushed one open. It was in darkness with nothing but a jumbled pile of tables and chairs on view. What a disappointment; and when I went back the next day it was still closed.

◄ Attractions Near Limassol ►

Limassol's central southern position makes it a good base for touring around Cyprus, particularly if you have a car. The capital, Nicosia is less than an hour's drive away, as are most parts of southern Cyprus. I'll just mention here some places within easy striking distance that are worth visiting.

**Ancient Amathous**
A few minutes drive along the coast road heading east from the Limassol tourist area brings you to the archaeological site of Amathous, a seaport founded 3000 years ago and unearthed in the 19th century. For an entrance fee of CYP£1 you can view the remains of temples, Roman baths, an aqueduct and a cemetery as well as ancient Greek houses and medieval mosaics. There is not much rising above ground level and the columns and remains of buildings on the site are easily visible from the main coast road as you drive by. I found it disappointing compared with what you can see in Crete, for example, but it's still worth a look.

**Beaches**
A short drive away from Limassol there are better beaches than the town itself has to offer. Ladies Mile beach is about 15 minutes drive to the west of the town and is only accessible by car. We drove there along the very rough and bumpy approach road, which gave our hire car's suspension a thorough testing. The beach is huge and unspoilt with just the odd café every now and again, some of which hire out chairs and umbrellas.

Travelling east from Limassol, Governor's Beach is about 30 minutes drive. It comprises small sandy bays with a backdrop of cliffs and is reckoned to be one of the best beaches in Cyprus.

**Kolossi Castle**
This medieval castle is a stark, square stone lump sitting on some fairly barren ground about 8 miles west of Limassol. I looked around it but there wasn't much to see inside. It was worth the climb up the narrow staircase to the top for the panoramic views of the countryside and coast though. There was a stall selling drinks and snacks near the entrance.

**Kourion**
Travelling west on the Pafos road from Limassol and just slightly further than Kolossi is the ancient archaeological site of Kourion, also known as Curium. We visited it straight after Kolossi Castle as the two places are within a mile or two of each other. You can also take a bus to this place starting from outside the front of Limassol castle and I think the fare I saw advertised was CYP £7 return. The entrance charge to the site was only CYP£1 and money well spent. It's a big site, spread over a wide area and you need a couple of hours there to do it justice. It's spectacularly set on a cliff top overlooking the Mediterranean and the focal point is the restored Roman amphitheatre, where concerts and plays are staged. Excavations and restoration are still taking place here and parts of these are covered by permanent-looking wooden-roofed structures, which no doubt afford protection to the ancient remains but which I thought looked slightly ugly and out of place here. There are shrines, temples and various other ruins, including a Roman bath and hypocaust underground heating system to see. The remains of the temples of the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates on a separate site close by are also worth visiting. After our morning walk around the site we went down to the beach to have lunch at the Kourion Beach restaurant, where we sat overlooking the sea and ate pork kebabs with the usual accompaniment of village salad and chips for a bargain CYP£3.75 each, washed down with a large Keo beer for CYP£1. I'd rate Kourion as an essential place to visit if you're staying in Limassol.

**Troodos Mountains**
We drove north from Limassol and within minutes we were climbing into the Troodos mountains. Within 20 minutes we were seemingly in another world; a landscape of soaring peaks and sweeping valleys, deserted, winding roads with hairpin bends and precarious drops from the roadside, vineyards and tiny villages. The temperature up here was several degrees cooler than that of Limassol, although the sun still blazed down. We stopped at a winery and were immediately greeted and invited in to taste the wines. A selection of six or seven bottles appeared on a counter, laid out to taste in order from the driest white to the most full-bodied red and after we had tasted them and bought a couple of bottles we were given a guided tour of the winery. We stopped at some of the little villages, including Omodos, which was very picturesque with its flowers and fruit trees, traditional houses and little old ladies dressed in black, sitting engrossed in their lace-making. It's a shade touristy with its souvenir shops and restaurants but pretty nonetheless. We went into the ornate Timios Stavros monastery, glistening with gold decoration and chandeliers, where there are said to be fragments of the True Cross kept. I liked the Troodos mountain area most of all the places I visited in Cyprus and I would like to have spent more time there.

◄ Final Thoughts ►

If you are looking for a quiet, peaceful holiday wandering from hotel to beach to bar, Limassol might not be ideal. It's a busy place, a city where people work and live their daily lives, as well as a seaside resort. If you are looking for a base from which to explore the area but which also has enough to keep you entertained when you feel like staying put, it fits the bill very well. It has its own character and identity; I liked it and I would go again.

Copyright © 2007 David (Mitsudan on Ciao) 

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