Sea, stone and mountain.
Sea caves at Cape Greco, mosaics at Kourion, a four-course village lunch in the Troodos and the last divided capital in Europe. What each day is really like, and what it costs.
Seven that earn the whole day.
A first week in Paphos or a fifth spring in Larnaca, this is the handful that ends up in the photographs: the track out to Lara Bay, a wreck lying on its side off Larnaca, a Troodos village lunch that arrives in eleven dishes.
Cpt Marko – Blue Lagoon & Turtle Cruise with Optional Lunch
Blue Lagoon and Turtle Cruise from Ayia Napa with two snorkeling swim stops, gear to borrow, possible sea turtles, and optional lunch.
From $42 per person
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Past Agios Georgios the road gives up.
That is where the Akamas starts: a dirt track through juniper, the Avakas gorge narrowing until two people cannot pass, a turtle beach at Lara nobody ever paved a road to, and water at the Blue Lagoon that turns an unlikely colour by eleven. Jeep, boat, or both before dinner.
Sea day, mountain day, or the divided capital?
Cyprus is three hours end to end, so the question is never distance. It is what you want the day to feel like: salt, altitude, or a city with a line drawn through the middle of it.
Out past the buoys
The sea day
4 hours 30 minutes (approx.) · from $42 · 1,955 reviews
Latchi or Protaras, a morning departure, and somewhere off the cliffs the engine cuts and everybody jumps. Lunch cooked on deck, sea caves on the way back in, ashore by five with sunburn on the backs of your knees.
All the boat days →
Above the pine line
The Troodos day
8 hours (approx.) · from $66 · 1,562 reviews
Hairpins up to Platres, halloumi still warm at a village dairy, a painted Byzantine church sheltering under its own barn roof, then a long lunch in Omodos. Ten degrees cooler than the coast, right through August.
See the Troodos days →
Across the Line
The divided capital
3 hours (approx.) · from $70 · 323 reviews
Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe. You walk the Venetian walls, show a passport at the Ledra Street crossing, and a hundred metres later the coffee, the alphabet and the road signs have all changed.
See the Nicosia walks →
The best hours are the last ones.
Six o’clock is when the island stops being hot and starts being beautiful. The Cape Greco cliffs go orange, tavernas put tables out along Kato Paphos harbour, and the Ayia Napa quay fills with people who have nowhere to be. These are the evenings worth booking ahead of the day.
Meze keeps arriving until you say stop.
Halloumi grilled at the dairy that pressed it that morning, sheftalia off the coals, and a glass of Commandaria from a vine the Crusaders already thought was old. Village tavernas do not hurry, so the day should not either.
The Zenobia is down there.
A ferry the size of a city block lies on its side off Larnaca in forty metres of clear water, and divers fly in for it alone. Shallower and warmer: turtles over the seagrass at Lara, and caves you can snorkel straight into from the sand.
Cyprus keeps its ruins by the sea.
The theatre at Kourion still looks straight down at the water. The Paphos mosaics have been under a roof since a farmer’s plough found them in 1962. Kolossi’s keep was a Crusader sugar estate before it was a castle. Almost none of it sits behind glass; you walk on it.
Every town is a different island.
Paphos for the mosaics and the harbour castle. Ayia Napa for water you can see the bottom of. Larnaca for the salt lake and the wreck offshore. Nicosia for the only walled capital with a border down the middle.
Twelve ways to spend a Cyprus day.
A jeep track through the Akamas or a dive on the Zenobia. A hillside winery or a waterpark nobody under twelve will agree to leave. Choose the shape of the day; the prices are on the other side.
Nowhere on this island is far.
Corner to corner is a morning’s drive, so a day trip here means an early start and a late lunch. Ledra Street to Lara Bay, a Roman theatre to a ghost town behind the wire, and the hire car back before the light goes.
A first three days that works.
Nobody sees Cyprus in a week, but three days will give you the shape of it: one coast, one mountain range, one capital with a line through the middle.
Day 1
Coast, castle, mosaics
Start in Paphos. The harbour castle, the House of Dionysus mosaics under their roof, then the coast road south to Aphrodite’s Rock for the last hour of light.
See Paphos tours →
Day 2
Up into the Troodos
Hairpins to Platres, a painted church at Kakopetria, halloumi at a village dairy and a lunch in Omodos long enough to need a driver for the way down.
See Troodos days →
Day 3
The capital, both halves
Nicosia inside the Venetian walls, the Ledra Street crossing with a passport in your pocket, coffee on the far side, then the drive down to Larnaca for the evening.
See Nicosia walks →
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