Cyprus 🇨🇾

In my goal of visiting every country in the EU, I had 3 days off work and decided to book a flight to Cyprus. I was motivated to travel here now and not later because you can only fly or take a boat to the island; there isn’t an option to take a train or a Flixbus. It was originally going to be a round trip from Budapest to Larnaca, but Wizz Air cancelled my return flight. I pivoted by booking my return trip from Paphos instead. This completely changed my itinerary, but it became much better. I would have been disappointed to miss out on Paphos.

Larnaca

I wasn’t a super fan of Larnaca. It’s good if you want a slow beach trip. But I was here to sightsee, and one of the places I wanted to see (Hala Sultan Tekke) was so far away from the city center and the airport that it was miserable. I was able to walk 40 minutes there from the airport, but the walk back would have been an hour and 15 minutes. The Sun was no joke. I was lucky because someone offered for me to hitchhike with them. The public transport was not super consistent.

Nicosia

The capital of Cyprus, but it doesn’t have its own airport. I honestly really enjoyed Nicosia compared to Larnaca. I regret not staying there for longer. There are so many museums and historical sites offered, but I only explored outside of them during my day there. The highlight for me was to cross the UN Buffer Zone into the Northern Republic of Cyprus, which is only recognized by Turkey. I had to go through passport control on both sides of the internal border. I would have enjoyed exploring more of this area too, but I was on a time crunch because I needed to get to Paphos for my flight out the next evening. This likely would have been the highlight of my trip had I stayed longer. I feel like I barely scratched the surface, but I enjoyed what I saw.

Paphos

This was the highlight of my trip. The whole city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has an airport. It has multiple ruins and archaeological sites. I loved seeing the mosaics from 200 A.D. honoring the Greek gods. If you want to go see the birthplace of Aphrodite, they have a bus that can take you there, but it is about an hour or so out of the city, and the bus to come back only comes every 2-3 hours or so. It was worth it to me since I don’t foresee myself going back soon. I would have liked an extra day there simply because I basically speed ran it, and I was running on fumes by the time I got to the last stop for my day. This is definitely the place to be if you want to maximize your step count for the day while soaking up the sun and exploring the historical sites.

Public Transport

This is an island country. They did not have trams or trains, only busses. Some busses came every 30 minutes, some every hour or even 2 hours. What’s crazy to me is that the busses to and from different cities were cheap, between 5-8 euro. But then the busses in the city themselves would also be between 2-5 euro per stop, depending on which city you were in. I ended up paying for the day pass in Paphos and I worked out in my favor, but I will give you more insight on that on my Paphos city page and trip itinerary.

Final Impression

Cyprus does have pretty sights to offer. I wish I was more knowledgeable of their public transport system prior to arriving, but I liked it for what it is. It almost reminded me of a cross between Albania and Corfu. I am happy to have been exposed to Cypriot culture. I don’t see myself coming back here anytime soon, but that’s also due to lack of funds and the opportunity cost of not going somewhere else that’s new to me instead. This trip made me excited to eventually see Malta as well, the European Union’s other island country.