Larnaca; Wednesday, 12 March, 2025

I’d stayed overnight at my usual airport hotel close to Hatton Cross tube station as the transfers into Heathrow on the Picadilly line are free, however that only works if the piccadilly line is behaving and a quick check of the TfL status page over breakfast revealed trains were heavily disrupted, so it was going to be hit or miss whether I got the tube or paid for the bus. After checking out I wandered over to the station to find out there was a 25 minute wait for the next T5 train so I gave up on the free transfer and tapped my Oyster card on the bus round to the terminal.

After a shaky start I had a smooth and hassle free journey through the airport and onto the plane which left almost on time and headed down to the Eastern Mediterranean.

We landed in Larnaca just ahead of schedule and with the bags coming up pretty quickly I was through customs and out into the arrivals hall within about 20 minutes of the wheels hitting the tarmac.

I had booked a shared shuttle from the airport over to my hotel, which could have meant hanging around for up to an hour for other passengers, but it turned out that the only other passengers booked on the shared shuttle were on a delayed flight that wasn’t due to land for another 90 minutes, so the transfer desk popped me into a taxi and 15 minutes later I was being dropped off at my hotel.

Checked in and with my stuff dropped off in my room I headed down through the hotel complex to the seafront to go for a little wander along the shore though by now it was pretty dark and only a handful of the street lights were working so there wasn’t much to see, instead I turned round and headed back to the hotel to grab dinner in the hotel restaurant.

That turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as for quite a lot of money the buffet was pretty poor quality so I made a note that it would just be breakfasts in the almost deserted hotel and to eat out the rest of the time.

With not much else to do I headed up to my room and spent a bit of time reading out on my balcony soaking up the 18C even at 8pm before turning in for the night.