Easter Vacations in Cyprus: What are your plans?

We have a long weekend coming up, in fact a very long one of 5 days. Many take the 2 days off in the next week to make it a pretty decent break of 10 days. I am going to Dubai for a short vacation, but about you. If you are in Cyprus, are your plans done? If not, let me help you with some suggestions. You can check out the links in each of the plans below for more details.

• You could go to North Cyprus for a 2-3 day visit. Visit the Saint Hilarion castle and enjoy the Kyrenia harbour. Who knows, you could also win a fortune at the North Cyprus casinos.
• It is a great time now in Cyprus to rent a 4WD jeep. It is still not unbearably hot, as there is always a cool breeze around. You could rent a jeep and explore the ruggedness of Akamas by visitung the Avakas gorge or going up to the Baths of Aphrodite.
• If you want to have a break with your family not involving lot of walking around, visit the medieval bridges of Cyprus, the kelefos bridge (which is good for a lunch break) and the Elia Bridge and also visiting Trimiklini double bridge on the way. If you have a jeep, then you can also add Roudia Bridge to the itinerary.
• Another good option with the family would be to go camping in polis or at the governors beach. It would be a nice outdoor break, but without much of the hassle of any other activity.
  
• If you want to spend your time with nature, there is no better way than to go for the short Kalidonia waterfalls trek from platres. Of course, if you want to rough it out, you can choose the longer trek down from the top. You can also visit the beautiful Millomeri waterfalls on the way.

So, there you are, many options to make your easter vacations interesting. I am off to Dubai and i hope that those in Cyprus would make the most of this time and explore this beautiful island.
Happy Easter!

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Omodhos Village in Cyprus

Also spelt sometimes as Omodos, a visit to this village would present you the real cyprus. Cyprus may look modern with its fancy cars and bikes, trendy night clubs and its fashionable citizens, but the real Cyprus is all about its culture and tradition. For a feel of that, you have move away from the cities and into the numerous villages dotting the hillsides.

Omodos Village is less than an hour's drive from Limassol and is enroute to Troodos. On entering the village, you are greeted by a big square with coffee shops and souvenir shops on its sides. This may seem touristy, but everything after this is not.

There is a big church at one end of the square and the village branches off from the sides of the church. The streets are very narrow and fun to explore. On a weekday, you can also get to taste the local wines offered at many of the stalls. Omodos is famous for its vineyards and its wines. We went on a Sunday and most of the shops were closed.

We also came across a gentleman who insisted that we visit his traditional house. We were wary at first, but it was good that we agreed. It was an amazing experience. He took us around the house. The "traditional" look was retained and he showed us around all the rooms and also the antiquities that he had preserved. The best part was a photograph with family members from 5 generations. The house even had a basement with a window looking out just a few inches above the street outside. Like most of the present day Cypriots, his children and grand children had settled in Nicosia and he was here with his wife looking after their ancestral home. If you go to Omodos, don't miss this.

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Camping in Governor's Beach, Cyprus

Few weeks back, we had been camping in Polis in the north western corner of Cyprus. We wanted to go camping again, but were bored to drive more than an hour to reach Polis. So, we went to a camping site near Governor's beach, which, even if we follow the speed limit, takes little more than 20 mins to reach. So, even if we get bored there, we could always drive back home anytime during the day/night.

This camping area is just to the left of the actual beach (you have to take a left on the way to the beach from the exit). It looks much more organised than the Polis camping area. But, the number of people with tents was almost negligible. Most of the people had their own caravans (some with even a satellite connection with the dish hooked up outside the caravan). I heard that the slots are kind of permanent and rented out to people with caravans. But, we liked the place. It was much more peaceful than in Polis and Vidhya liked the absence of dogs here.

It was Vidhya's birthday and it was a nice surprise with the gang organising a cake cutting ceremony and giving us lot of gifts.

Btw, if you go for camping, don't forget to take along someone who will always volunteer to show the way for you by holding a light (as you can see in the photos above). Sarvesh also gives a Statue of Liberty pose below.

The beach is just a short walk away. Governor's beach is known for its blackish sand and clear waters. If you keep walking down the beach, you can see interesting cliff formations and also small caves. An ideal camping site, close to home!

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Camping in Polis, Cyprus

The last time i went camping was more than 5 years ago on the occasion of the first anniversary of landing in Cyprus. We didn't celebrate the anniversaries after that and now after 6 years, there are probably a few of us still in Cyprus as compared to the 42 when we went camping last time.

This time, it was with a group of around a dozen friends. Until the last minute, we were discussing on where to go camping. The options were to either go to troodos or to the more famous, well known Polis camping site. We chose the latter for the numerous other things we could do in Polis, as the site was right on the beach. But, all we ended up doing most of the time was to just play cards!

Polis is a beautiful little hamlet in the north-west of Cyprus. It is probably the first choice for camping in Cyprus. Polis is just a short drive away from Latchi, a popular fishing village. The Baths of Aphrodite, a famous tourist stop in Cyprus is also very close-by. Polis can be used as a gateway to explore the wild west of Cyprus - Akamas.

The camping site is in the midst of a large Eucalyptus grove situated right on the shore. There are clear directions to the site once you enter Polis. Even though the site is huge, almost every inch of it is occupied during the summer weekends. We had to spend some time walking around the site to find a location for us to pitch our tents. We were lucky as a group was just packing off when we arrived and we got a location under the trees and also close to the beach.

Few of the things you need to keep in mind before going camping:

• Get your own tents. They have stopped renting out tents. Also, get some bedding/pillows to put inside the tents as the ground is uneven, unless you want to totally rough it out!
• You have to get your own lighting. Either you can get a long wire with a bulb and attach it to the electricity outlets available or you can get one of the portable lamps which run on gas (like the ones you see in the middle of one of the photos below). They cost around 10 pounds and are available in all the big supermarkets. The gas containers last for around 4 hrs each and a replacement costs under 50 cents.
• It can get cold in the nights. Though it is very hot nowadays, we found it to be pretty cool in the mornings and a light blanket was needed.
• Try to get a portable stove to make the wonderful late-night or early-morning tea/coffee. The cafe there near the camping site is a lame substitute.
• Take Torch Lights. You will definitely search for dropped keys at least once :-)
• Mats to put on the ground. Or you can use the sun-screens of the cars as a substitute.

I had always wanted to drive along the road to the east of Polis, going towards Pomos and Kato Pyrgos. It is supposed to be one of the most picturesque drives in Cyprus. On Sunday, after we packed our stuff and left the camping site, we decided to go for this drive. It was a good drive even though it was 12 in the noon and it was very hot. This place would look much more beautiful in winter and spring with the beach on one side of the road and the hillocks on the other. The road goes close to the Kokkina, the Turkish Cypriot enclave surrounded on all sides except the sea by the Greek Cypriot part and totally cut-off from the other Turkish Cypriot areas. Even after 6 years of roaming around a lot in Cyprus, there are times like this when i go to an area or drive on a road for the first time. This is testimony to the fact that Cyprus has a lot more to offer than just its beaches and you can never get bored of it.

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A Trip to Kelefos Bridge

Kelefos Bridge is the most famous of the still remaining medieval bridges in Cyprus. The other two in the same area are the Elia and Roudia bridges. I have been to this numerous times in various seasons and it had always been a nice visit.

To go to Kelefos bridge, this is the route to take:

• From the highway, take the troodos exit and go towards troodos.
• After around 20 kms, you will come to the village of trimlikini.
• Immediately after Trimlikini, you will come across a junction where there are roads going to various other villages to the right and left. You have to take left where the signs point towards Mandria and Omodos Monastery.
• Proceed towards Mandria on the same road. Just after Mandria, you will see many exits. Don't go towards Omodos/Platres. Take the turn towards Ayios Nikolas/Pafos.
• After this turn, the road is pretty narrow and single-laned. You have to drive for at least 15-20 minutes to reach Ayios Nikolas.
• Just when you enter Ayios Nikolas, you will see a brown board pointing the turn towards the right for Kelefos Bridge.
• You have to travel for around 6 kms on this earthen road to reach the bridge.

I had always wanted to take decent photographs of the crabs in this river. This time, i took my 70-300 lens and got some pretty ok shots. This place is also good for a picnic with few seats available at the banks of the river. We also did a river-walk, i.e. we walked on the river (as it is just over a feet deep) upstream for more than 1.5 hours. This was a very interesting trip. More about that in a later post. Enjoy the photos.

The photo below was very challenging to take as the insect was skipping around very fast on the water and it was difficult to get a proper focus on the insect. The one below is the best from almost a dozen attempts.

I am very happy with the photos of the crab below, considering the fact that the water was pretty murky and the crab was at least 10-15 cms inside the water. Had to use manual focus with a flash for these shots.

I tried to take a "different" shot of the bridge and as can be seen below, i failed :-)

You can also visit Elia Bridge which is just 2-3 kms from Kelefos Bridge.

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