Sunny Cyprus

Our final destination, Cyprus, was more the result of events than planning. It wasn’t on our original schedule and we had been recently.  We booked it because it was just a 50-minute hop from Jordon, where we also planned to go but due to Covid, ultimately didn’t. From Dubai, we flew directly to Larnaca, which lies East of the Island towards Isa Napa.

Cyprus’s attraction was its predictability plus we knew you could dive there. It was going to be our ‘holiday’ before we came home and something more familiar seemed the right choice, and it was.

We booked ourselves into a small hotel in the old town and just a short walk to the beach with its dark sand and clean shore. It was perfect for a few days. We had time to visit 12th-century Larnaca Castle, its art museum, the Church of Saint Lazarus and the archaeological museum in town. We also took time to take it easy, spending time in the sea aided by a softly sloping beach.

Whilst not well known for its wine, it produces significant quantities which it almost single-handedly consumes, aided by its swelling tourist population. Over two tasting sessions, one in Larnaca, we tasted about 20 different bottles, and it was pretty good stuff. The most surprising of which was a bottle of blue wine, coloured with a red wine grape pigment. What it didn’t do for taste it did for novelty and we later found out a similar version is made on the Isle of White just 2 miles away from our home.

Cyprus has a history going back 12,000 years and its history is rich. As an island near Siri, Turkey and Israel, its been ceased and occupied by many great powers  - Persians, Egyptians, Venetians, Ottomans empire, and even the United Kingdom (although not ceased as such). As a result, the Island is rich in history and deserves a week’s tour by car, something we didn’t have plans for. For the British, who make up many of its visitors, it means Cyprus speaks English, drives on the left, and writes everything in English.  We also have a major Army presence on the island, due to its ’strategic location’ with over 10,000 staff.

We were there just two days as we had booked 5 days in Paphos, a £100 1.5hour taxi ride away, from which we would also catch our flight home to the UK.  Larnaca had a nice charm with its boardwalk, family-owned restaurants and clear water. We also loved our hotel, which although small had one of the best breakfasts of all the hotels we had been across - you can’t beat a good greek yogurt and hand-crafted coffee.

The taxi driver, a retired gentleman, almost broke down in tears. Our clipped conversation quickly turned to a very sad story of how his son a fit-looking forty-year-old, had died as a result of a tear gas canister hitting his head. He had been at a demonstration related to Covid 19 restrictions and the police had used tear gas to disperse the crowd. It was so sad and we listened carefully, offering soft words of condolence.

We had stayed in Paphos previously and for the next five days only ventured beyond the city to make two more dives. Both were interesting, to start we rejected one ‘shore dive’ turning up to a cliff face that required traversing in heavy oxygen tanks; it just wasn’t going to happen. The second site (first) dive wasn’t much better for entry, but we struggled in to be rewarded by mainly rocky seascape, including one that looked like a natural amphitheater.  There were fewer fish than in Asia and seagrass/seaweed waved in the underwater currents.

We found multiple opportunities to swim in their harbour area, dedicated to swimmers. Protected from the worst waves, with steps, showers, and seating, it was clearly still an area used by locals. Its sunkissed position helped us make a last-minute top-up to our tans, aided on several occasions by. a beer, apple, and a few slices of cheese.  It was here that on the last day we spotted and snorkeled beside a local greenback turtle, almost a metre long.

On the last day, we threw out anything we wouldn’t use again, donating a bag to the local charity shop and using the weight difference to top up with some last-minute booze for family and friends. After a day out near the seafront, which included an hour on battery-powered trikes, we called a taxi and went off to the airport for an overnight flight to the UK.

M&J