Hello dear blog readers and Steemians,
last Thursday I went to Hamburg in the afternoon and spent one night there in a hotel near the airport to fly to North Cyprus the next morning.
At first we flew to Antalya, where the plane made a stopover for about 40 minutes and the crew was changed. This is because the entry into the north of Cyprus (the "Turkish" side) is only allowed from Turkey.
For this reason, the planes from other countries are always landing in Turkey, have to stop there for at least 30 minutes and then they are flying to Northern Cyprus. (You do not have to change the airplane.)
So you are always entering the Turkey at first and then you are allowed to enter northern Cyprus. This is a bit confusing, but it´s because Northern Cyprus is an independent state, but still belongs to Turkey. The Turkish government is providing Northern Cyprus with much money for example to restore monuments, cathedrals, etc...
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 and the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus exercises effective control only in the southern part of Cyprus (the "Greek side"). The southern part and the northern part of the island of Cyprus are delimited by a demarcation line (green line) and only Turkey recognizes the northern part of Cyprus as an independent state. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus covers just over one third of the entire island.
I was very interested in seeing the island for myself and how life is there, seeing Cyprus as a potential place to emigrate. But if Im doing this, I would move to the southern part of Cyprus, which I have to visit first of course, but to get an insight into the life on the whole island, I first explored the northern part.
The travel company RSD (Travel Service Germany) had a very good offer for a round trip / study trip with German speaking tour guide for this December, with accommodation in selected 5 & 4 star hotels, such as the Kaya Artemis Hotel Resort.
The trip was promoted by the state, so that more tourists come to the country, as Northern Cyprus is still a very little-visited holiday destination. There are currently just 50,000 tourists traveling to Northern Cyprus in the moment, but there are another 75,000 tourists alone by the travel company RSD.
For me it was the first time that I had participated in such a pre-organized study tour, which are often called "coffee trips" and I was really looking forward to it. At this point I can tell you that it was not a classic "coffee trip" and that the journey was really worth it. It was a very interesting journey with lots of information and background information about Northern Cyprus, as well as the places visited.
The hotels were very upscale (I didn´t expected this for the small price) and also the travel bus was very modern. In addition, there was a lot of free time, as most of the excursions were back at 3pm to 5pm, as well as two completely customizable days. Those who still wanted to have a pre-planned program with other excursion destinations these two days, could also book this.
On the first day we arrived in the evening at the airport Ercan in Northern Cyprus and we were picked-up there with a modern travel bus with our tour guide Nurkan Tolunay. From there we went to the great 5-star hotel resort "Kaya Artemis". After the check-in we were even driven to our rooms with small "buses" (something like large golf cars), so that we don´t had to search for it in the dark.
Then we went directly to dinner with a huge buffet. The selection was really huge and the food was delicious!
The restaurant is located directly at the pool of the hotel and almost right on the beach. Here is a photo of the restaurant at the great pool (the beach and the sea are behind me):
After dinner, I enjoyed some nice drinks, which I got for free at the bar with my all-inclusive band. ;D
Then it was time to go to bed not so late, because we wanted to visit the first excursion destinations on the next day, such as the visit to the city of Nicosia.
Stay tuned for my next travel review tomorrow and best regards!
PS: This article was published with the Esteem Surfer Software by 
