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.

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.

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.

◄ Practical Matters ►

**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.

**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.

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.

**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.

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.

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.

◄ Things To Do in Limassol ►

**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.

Pictures of Limassol (Cyprus)

Limassol Beach

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**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.

**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.

**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.

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.

**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.

◄ Final Thoughts ►