We arrived in the port of Limassol, Cyprus in the early hours this morning, receiving notification at perhaps 7:30 that the gang planks were down, and we were free to go ashore. The new port is perhaps fifteen minutes by car from the “old town” without much in the way of interest between the two, so a shuttle bus service was laid on for passengers to travel back and forth.
After a shower, and wandering down to take part in the daily buffet table fight, we disembarked and jumped on the first in a row of waiting shuttle buses. I guess when you’re dealing with 2,000 passengers – the majority of which seem to enjoy complaining rather a lot – you try to remove as many reasons as possible.
Let’s just say the old town in Limassol looks bigger on a map than it is in reality. Within a couple of hours we have visited the impressively ancient castle, wandered all of the labyrinthine streets of the old town, stopped for a coffee, written postcards, posted them, and were struggling to find something to do.
Perhaps I’m not being entirely fair. The castle was really quite wonderful – and made my other half’s holiday because it had been “yarn bombed” (she’s a knitter). She took hundreds of photos – not of the Castle itself, but of the crochet displays wrapped around many of its walls – both inside and out.
Walking around the chambers below Limassol Castle I couldn’t help humming the music from the third Indiana Jones movie – where Indiana discovers the Grail in Petra (or rather, “the Canyon of the Crescent Moon”). There was a magic about the 1500 year old tombstones below the castle – engraved with knights in armour.
It turns out exploring ancient castles is thirsty (and hungry) work.
After a quick google search we found a nice restaurant in the middle of town that was about to start their lunch service, and ordered perhaps the best two meals of the journey so far. I had a traditional meatball dish served with rice and salad, and my other half went for a halloumi salad. Cyprus is famous for halloumi – and the product you buy on the island is very different (read: much better) than anything you might find exported to the rest of the world. It didn’t disappoint.
After lunch – still with time to kill – we walked the length of the board-walk along the sea-front of Limassol – a couple of kilometres each way – and stopped at a quiet sea-front bar for a drink before returning to the ship.
It’s difficult to know what to make of Limassol, having only spent a day here. There’s little that stands out as a destination that would make you want to come back. After reading the opinions of others online, they broadly align with our own – while it might serve as a good base to visit elsewhere, in and of itself it’s a little bit soul-less. I guess it doesn’t help that much of Limassol is now modern – with high rise hotels and tower blocks appearing along the coast, surrounding the old town on all sides.
The history on display in the castle was its saviour really – along with the many cats found wandering the city – but beyond that, we came away feeling a little bit flat. Perhaps we’re getting a bit blase after visiting port after port throughout the last week – or perhaps we’ve been spoiled by the likes of Cadiz, Palermo, Athens, and Ephesus.
I thought it was interesting – making conversation with an older visitor while boarding the bus back – that those older than us seemed to like it far more than we did. I wondered if it’s because of the familiarity with home – a lot of British services personnel have historically lived on the island, and undoubtedly had an influence (RAF Akrotiri is still a British enclave). Perhaps they don’t understand that today the British population is less than 1% of the native population – who are mostly Greek and Turkish… I don’t know – I’m just guessing.
Anyway.
Limassol was nice. Different. An interesting, and it turns out ancient, city. I’m glad we visited Limassol, and not one of the resort towns – I remember visiting Tenerife with the kids a few years ago, and coming away learning nothing about the place, its people, its history, or traditions.
Tomorrow is another sea day. Before that happens, apparently the ship is calibrating its Doplar systems this evening – we’re going to navigate through 6 turns once we leave port – if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch.
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