Larnaca, Cyrpus

Cyprus, a country essentially in the Middle East, technically considered to be part of west Asia, yet culturally belonging to Europe. Though ruled by the British (also means they drive on the wrong side of the road:) from 1878 until 1960, its roots are overwhelmingly Greek. Cyprus is less than 200 miles from the Lebanese coast.

We flew into Larnaca whose beaches begin at the airport’s terminus. It is a very walkable and bikeable city with its promenade following the beach. Cyprus in general very much reminds of Miami Beach. High end cars are so abundant that I started to wonder if Mercedes Benz’s are a perk of being a Cypriot, while high rises and fancy restaurants snake along the coast.

Nicosia is the capital of Cyprus and is both metaphorically and literally a divided city. Cyprus is overwhelmingly populated by Greeks, but there is also a healthy Turkish population. In 1974, with unofficial help from the CIA (we found their president to be too socialist leaning 🙄), Greece attempted to annex all of Cyprus.

Reports of war crimes against Turkish Muslims were reported prompting Turkey to invade, eventually capturing 36% of the island (all in the north). A truce was brokered and is still to this day overseen by UN troops. As a consequence, there is a wall, hard to call it a legitimate wall since at times it is nothing more than oil barrels and concertina wire, that separates not only the northern portion of Cyprus captured by Turkey, but even Nicosia itself is divided in two.

We walked the city and was simply wild to me to see people eating and drinking at Pubs with their backs leaning against this UN constructed wall. Looking at it reminded me of what the Berlin Wall (to a much lesser degree) would have been like. There is a proper border crossing between the two cities (no country in the world, outside of Turkey, recognizes northern Cyprus as belonging to Turkey).

We crossed over into Turkish Nicosia and walked the streets. People describe it as immediately feeling like you are in Turkey (I haven’t been yet) compared to Cyprus. Turkish delights and food bizarres were everywhere, the Turkish Lira is the currency and we almost immediately came upon a Turkish bathhouse. Since we are not going to Turkey (maybe we just did🤷‍♂️) on this trip, we figured why not. We hadn’t indulged ourselves in a while and it was wonderful. Fascinating city and history and now we are off to beaches of Limassol.Read more