Dealing with the cold January weather of New England keeps me daydreaming about the beaches. Today I found myself thinking about my trip to Cyprus. During the Summer of this trip, my friend, Jason, and I traveled all around Europe. For those who don't know, Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean. It has beautiful beaches and water that is a stunning shade of blue. The water is so warm, you could bathe in it all day.
We flew into the Larnaca airport on Cyprus. Prior to our trip we made reservations on air bnb for a place to stay. Our host, Tommy, was the nicest host ever. He offered to pick us up from the airport and he even let us use his car to drive around the island (even though they drive on the left side there). Upon our arrival at Tommy's house, he recommended we use the ATVs and go for a ride to explore the area. Tommy and his dog, Snoopy, joined us for the ride.
Each night we were blessed by a beautiful sunset that we could easily see from the upper balcony of where we were staying. Every morning we were fortunate to be provided eggs from Tommy's hens for breakfast. Since we didn't have much time in Cyprus, we wanted to explore as much as possible. We decided to be brave and drive the car on the left side of the road without GPS all the way to Ayia Napa.
Ayia Napa was a really cool town with lots to do. You could tell just by driving through that it was party central. If you like good night life this would definitely be a great place for you to stay. We preferred to relax and adventure on our trip so staying in Larnaca was perfect for us.
We drove to Cape Greco and explored the area a little bit. It is a nature preserve with even more beautiful waters than the other parts of Cyprus we had been to. There were tons of caves to explore and tall cliffs to jump off of into the water if you are brave enough. I was given the task of video taping my friend jump off the cliff so I stayed inside one of the caves to get a good view.
The next day, we decided to adventure around the Larnaca area. We went into town for a bit and enjoyed seeing the old historic buildings. Our air bnb host told us about the history of Cyprus. He is a native and he is old enough to remember the Turkish invasion. It is a unique experience to hear about such an event from a first person witness.
Walking around town made everyone hungry so we were excited to go to Tommy's favorite seafood restaurant. Here we ordered a giant platter of seafood with shrimp, fish and calamari. We drank some wine and learned more about each other during the meal. Jason and I were really enjoying our time with Tommy and he has been a friend that we still keep in touch with. Below is a picture of our delicious dinner.
On our last day in Cyprus, we wanted to cram in a lot. First, we explored the beach. Some of the beaches in Cyprus are nude beaches so I decided to embrace it and go topless. For any ladies out there who have not tried it, do it! Just please remember to put sunscreen on your nipples!
After spending too much time sitting on the beach, we decided to walk around. Tommy pointed us in the direction of a cool surf shop that happened to be hosting the King of Kites kite surfing competition. For two Americans who had never seen the sport, it was really cool to see. The competition brought surfers from all over and the crowd was filled with people from all over the island and the world. We learned a lot about kite surfing and could not stop admiring the skill and strength needed to do the sport.
Our trip to Cyprus was nothing short of AMAZING. We were devastated that we did not get to spend more time on the island. The people were lovely and our host Tommy did a great job of showing us around. He even brought us to the local grocery stores to buy some food for the few nights we didn't go out. I would 100% recommend that anyone take a trip here and would be happy to put anyone in contact with Tommy to inquire about renting his upstairs apartment.
Looking forward to sharing many more travel pictures from all my adventures :)