[Closed] Cyprus at Xmas/New Year - anyone been?

Nobody?

well as i lived in cyprus for 3 years until 2008 i think i can answer.

avoid limmasol as its shit.
paphos is nice as is larnaca and ayia napa.

climate should be mid 20's at that time of year.

troodos will probably be covered in snow around crimbo time so i dont think you will get much riding in .

i would take a road bike .

not sure on flights from scotland sorry!!

cheers

steve

Thanks Steve.

By a happy coincidence it seems that Easyjet are about to start twice-weekly flights to Paphos. What's the road riding like?

I would avoid road riding in Cyprus.. only slightly above the standard of Portugal. As Renton said, temp is good, mid 20's. Take the MTB, no pesky trail laws, if you see a track, you can ride it.

Stuartie, Not sure what the road riding is like but my folks stay out there over the winter and at the moment they are upgrading the drainage system over a lot of the island. Paphos has been affected particlarly badly with many of the roads dug up! A lot of them are little better than dusty dirt tracks, even main roads. Also you can travel along a road open in the morning and closed a couple of hours later. Lovely place though and looked to be plenty of good roads for biking if you can avoid the roadworks. Let me know if i can help any more. Neill

I went to Cyprus a few years ago over New Year, fly over on Boxing Day and stayed for a week or so. We stayed in Larnaca and spent most of the time scuba diving a big wreck there. The diving was great as it was very quiet. However the weather wasn't that great, not as cold as the UK, but definitely jeans and jumper weather. While we were there we were told it was unseasonably cold.

New Years Eve was a bit strange, it seemed typical in Larnaca that everyone spent the evening with there family's (most bars and restaurants shut early) and then came out after midnight. If you are staying in a hotel it wouldn't be a problem, but we were in rented accommodation. Luckily we were pointed in the direction of an ex-pat bar and had a good night.

I lived out there for a couple of years too, at the Larnaca end of the island.

You could take the MTB - yes Troodos will be under a few feet of snow but there's still plenty of riding at low level, IIRC MBR did an overseas guide, one of which was to Cyprus, that included a route around the southern coastal area somewhere midway between Larnaca and Limmasol, the Akamas Peninsula, west of Paphos is good or the coastal and inland areas north and east (towards Protaras) of Agia Napa are alright. There's also plenty of lower riding on the Troodos foothills that won't be snowbound. I can't remember the email address of the club run by one of the Nicosia shops offhand but if I can find it I'll post up. There are at least a couple of MTB holiday companies that run on the island, one is definitely UK run and based on the Akamas, can't remember the name, the other is Biketreks in Pissouri, used to be owned/run by an ex-RAF PTI from Akrotiri.

Road riding's fine - don't be put off by the "even a lot of the main roads are just dusty tracks", that's cr@p. Yes a lot of the back roads and country roads can be a bit sketchy, but there is plenty of sound tarmac and the bigger roads are by and large in very good condition. Several teams and national squads train off-season in Cyprus - the Russian national squad in particular, regularly to be seen following routes that took them very close to the British bases...

The weather is generally low to mid 20s but it can get cool and cloudy and you'll experience some almighty rainstorms - it's all or nothing and seems like half the Med is coming down on you.

Nightlife wise at that time of year, you're probably best heading for Agia Napa or a resort where you can easily get access to ex-pat bars, if you stay in Larnaca head for the Larnaca strip between Larnaca itself and the British base at Dhekelia.

Jason,

That would be the Zenobia, a ferry that sank in Larnaca Bay after some plonker left the doors open in rough seas (sound familiar for the 80s?). It was my regular dive when I lived in Dhekelia.

Davetrave,
I can only give my experience from May this year in and around Paphos and i can tell you it is not crap! Main roads like the coastal road north out of Paphos, i think it was the tomb of the kings road, had a meter wide trench dug into them which had been filled with gravel and not retarmaced!
I agree that any road that had not had this treatment had a great surface but it would be a concern particularly with a road bike! The work is not due to finish till next year but there should be plenty of alternative routes if you get a good map and plan carfully.
Not sure what it is like outside the paphos area, Larnaca etc but as the OP stated he would be flying to Paphos i felt it relevant!
Feel free to believe me or not but i was only trying to help.

Neill

neillh,

no offence meant! the cyrpiots have a typically mediterranean attitude to getting things finished. think I might have slightly misundestood the meaning of what you were saying, i.e. from the wording I thought you meant the road network itself was dirt roads, not that they'd taken the lazy approach to finsishing repairs and leaving nice gravel strip in the tarmac.

as I say, I had 2 years in cyprus and got around the entire island, both north and south, plenty, with both Brits and friends that I made locally for cycling - the vast majority of the roads and trails are great and teams regularly go to cyprus for the off-season so it can't be that bad!

like you say, just needs a map and some planning (and maybe head for the eastern end...!).

davetrave, yes that is the boat. I have been to Cyprus to dive on there twice, I guess I have clocked up 20-30 dives on the one wreck and haven't seen much of it! - it is a great dive site, one of the best wrecks I have been on. The rumours I heard was that it was the boat owners were keen for the Zen to sink so they could claim on the insurance hence why it took a day or two to sink, giving them time to evacuate all the passengers. I belive the sister ship to the Zenobia is still sailing.

Thanks for replies guys.

Sounds like a pretty good bet - just need to decide on which bike. And where to stay. And...

Went about 8 years ago, yes mount olympus was covered in snow, but only the top - spent hours just pootling round the tracks, but at that time of year no where is open (except at the summit) so make sure you take enough provisions to keep you going. Was thinking of going again this year but I think it'll be the Canary Islands instead.