The Year Round Island - Part 3

So as this was my last week in Cyprus, I figured I should wrap it all up with a third report, just some final thoughts on the place.   So here goes….

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Well, the advertiser’s tag line of “The Year Round Island” does indeed seem to be accurate.  We’re into November now, and the holiday season is well and truly over – the beach umbrellas and sun loungers have mostly been packed away and the beach front bars are much less crowded – but the weather is still lovely.  It was cooler last week, around 20C and obviously lower than that in the evening, but I was caught out flying down this week.  In Warsaw now, the early morning temperatures (around 5:45 when I leave for the airport) are hovering around freezing, so this week I wore a tee-shirt, a casual shirt, a sweater over them and my Barbour coat.  Plus my usual cap.  As we approached Larnaca airport the captain came on the PA – “It’s a lovely day in Cyprus, no cloud and 25 degrees Celsius.”  So a striptease in the baggage hall as the coat and sweater went into my suitcase, and I was still hot in the 2 casual shirts.  It’s been the same all week, shirt sleeve weather – no jacket required.  It actually makes packing a little tricky – you need to carry stuff with you to wear back home at the end of the week, when it could be cooler still, mixed in with what is still essentially summer clothing for here.  It’s easy to get caught out – I remember us coming home from a holiday in Malta one October about 7 years ago, where the weather had been similar to Cyprus now, very hot and sunny, and landing in a blizzard in Warsaw.  We were being picked up by my brother-in-law and he was stuck in traffic, so we shivered in light shirts and summer clothes for half an hour waiting for him to arrive.  At least global warming seems to be making a difference and October snow in Warsaw seems a thing of the past…..

Driving in from the airport this week, we were diverted off the motorway for some reason, and ended up driving into Limassol along the old road that runs the last few kilometers along what was once clearly a beach side road, but the sea-view is now largely hidden by a succession of hotels great and small.  It’s called now the Tourist Area, with good reason.   Between some of the buildings the beach is in view, and it was largely deserted.  But in a few places there were people still relaxing and taking some late autumn sunshine, and even a few people swimming in a still sparkling blue Mediterranean.  I would love to have joined them……it was like a summer’s day back home in Poland or the UK.

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The tourist demographic has noticeably changed as well.

When I came here in August, there were legions of the young and the beautiful, parading around in the briefest of swimwear, shorts and sarongs and flimsy dresses leaving little to the imagination.   It was indeed a fine sight.  But as the weeks have passed, the body beautiful has given way to the body saggy, as the average age of visitors has gone from maybe 25 to three times that.   The Saga Louts are in town, big time (I should explain that to non-British readers – in the UK there is a holiday company, Saga Holidays, that specializes in package tours for the over-60s, and their behaviour can be a little less than appealing too, given a few sweet sherries).   So it’s now closer to my age group sitting around the hotel pool, or visiting the sea-front restaurants for lunch and a burger in the evening…….   And good luck to them!   I hope I’m still able and affluent enough to travel to beach resorts like this in my 70s and 80s as well, to get some late sun and ease the aches in joints that have seen better days.

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You may have noticed from some of my other blogs that I have a love of the sea and island communities.  It has always been in my mind to retire one day and buy a little place on the coast somewhere, a little cottage to relax in, read my books, listen to my music, watch tv, write that novel and biography I’ve been planning in my mind for years, all the time listening to the wind buffeting the trees outside and the surf crashing on a nearby beach.   Cornwall was always a favoured spot, especially the Roseland Peninsula around St. Mawes – less wild than the more northerly Atlantic coast and the westerly tip of the county, with more green woodland and hedgerows and lovely sheltered little coves and fishing villages like Portscatho and Veryan.  I haven’t been there for many years now, since my First Family’s adolescence, so it’s probably changed a lot now – which would be a pity – but for me at least it’s one of the most beautiful places in Britain.  I must take Ania and the kids there too – I’m sure they would love it.

The Polish coast as well has some lovely little villages, completely different in character to anything on offer in Britain – or indeed anywhere else that I’ve been to – and besides still offers great opportunities to buy land and property at reasonable, almost bargain, prices.  

But Cyprus, on what I have seen during these last three months, is a place I could happily retire to.  The climate is lovely, the people, at least those I have come into contact with (and I discount completely here the people in the bank) have been warm and friendly, whether British ex-pat or locals.  There is a great variety of shops and restaurants, prices seem to be reasonable in most of them, and in the supermarkets and stores food and household goods seem cheap enough.  As I wrote before, it’s very English in character, even down to driving on the “correct” side of the road.  I’ve felt more at home here than most other places I’ve visited.

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The last couple of weeks, the inbound flight from Vienna has taken a more westerly route.  This has afforded a couple of splendid aerial views of another old stomping ground of mine, Sofia in Bulgaria, nestling as it does on a plain surrounded by mountains that are now showing a first dusting of snow on the highest peaks.   From there, the flight clips a corner of the Sea of Marmara, then crosses Turkey, hitting the Med around Antalya, flies down the west coast of Cyprus and along the south coast to Larnaca airport.  As the weather has been brilliant, it’s given a superb view of the island’s landscape that I hadn’t appreciated before.  On the more easterly route, the flight crosses Nicosia and straight south to Larnaca, and that end of the island, though hilly, is largely arable – plenty of farms and olive groves visible as you come down.  But the western end of the island is much more rugged.

There is a mountain range, modest, not even alpine in its height, but big enough.  There are a couple of spectacular looking gorges carved through them just to the north of Paphos, running down to the sea,  that look as though they would be an entertaining hike, as well as some quite sizeable lakes in the highlands.  I’d like to return for a few days someday, rent a car and explore these highlands more thoroughly.  The exercise would do me good, I’m sure.

By staying to the coasts around Limassol, I’ve really limited myself very much – even though I thoroughly enjoyed lazing on the beaches and swimming in the Med on the weekends when I stayed here, early in the project.  Clearly, there is much more to Cyprus than I have seen, a much bigger variety of scenery and attractions than I had realized.  I think a spring visit would be good, or again at this time in another year, out of the blistering summer heat……with the Year Round Island tag proven it’s something to plan for the future certainly, with the family next time.