Larnaca; Thursday, 13 March, 2025

The breakfasts turned out to be significantly better than the dinner so I had a pretty filling breakfast, but was still confused as to how a hotel this large could operate profitably given how empty it was – there couldn’t have been more than 20 other people around the whole building, the answer to that would reveal itself that evening.

Breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel and caught the bus into town. The hotel was on two bus routes, both running every 30 minutes on weekdays, it’s just the routes arrived within 2 minutes of each other, so it wasn’t as convenient as I had first thought.

The bus dropped me off at the bus station in the centre of town just at the edge of the Finikoudes beach, the main sandy beach in the town. A month earlier I’d been on Gran Canaria which is in effect the top half of a gigantic volcano so there the beaches rapidly drop off into deep water, so it was interesting to see people at least a hundred meters out with water only up to their knees. I took in the views of the beach and the neighbouring castle from the short pier before wandering around to the castle to have a look inside that.

Only a small part of the fort survives to today with just the sea facing and a small portion of the southern walls still standing, but they are an excellent view point to take in views along the beach and into town, as well as taking in the small Medieval history museum in the main building of the fort. From there it was a short walk back along the seafront to the bus stop for the Love Buses Tour!

This was clearly a re-branded very elderly city-sightseeing tour bus that had at one time been a regular London bus (the signage, bell pushes and the rear doors were unmistakably 1990s London Transport, the city-sightseeing wipe clean seats on the lower deck the other giveaway about it’s history). The open top tour runs as a circular route taking about 2 ½ hours to take in parts of the city as well as head out to a couple of sights away from the city centre with 10-20 minute stops at each site giving you an easy way to explore some of the more distant sights in the city quickly, accompanied by an English language commentary.

The bus first headed out to the small village of Kiti and visited the very attractive Orthodox church of the Virgin Mary Angeloktisti for a 20 minute photo stop before heading round to the Larnaca Salt Lake and the very picturesquely located Hala Sultan Tekkesi on the banks of the lake for a short walk along the banks and a visit to the mosque, before driving onto the Kamares Aqueduct for a photo stop and then returning to Finikoudes beach.

I had a bit of a wander round the old town of Larnaca before heading over to the St Lazarus Church intending on having a look around, but it was clear that there was a service – possibly a funeral service – taking place so I just took in the views from the outside before wandering further through the old town and over towards the Archaeological Museum.

The museum is located on the north side of the city centre and houses a collection of archaeological finds from the local area, including a large collection of finds from the historic city of Kition that modern day Larnaca is built on top of. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the museum before heading back towards the centre of town and the beach, by which point I realised it was getting pretty late in the afternoon and I hadn’t yet eaten, so I found a restaurant overlooking the beach and have a very nice very late lunch/early dinner that was significantly more substantial, infinitely more tasty and half the price of the buffet the previous evening.

Sated I headed down onto the beach and, after checking that there were foot showers, took off my boots and socks and went for a long paddle/walk along the beach. Given how shallow the water is and the warm sun it was unsurprising that the water was pleasantly warm, so I spent quite a bit of time with my feet in the water just soaking up the warmth from both the water and the sun – to the point where the sun was already setting by the time I headed up the beach to the foot showers to wash all the sand off my feet and pop my socks and boots back on before heading over to the bus station to get the bus back to my hotel.

I arrived back at the hotel to find a semi-disorganised chaos ongoing as the reason for the hotels quietness the previous day was revealed. This weekend was the European Throwing Cup (an event for European Javelin, Discus, Hammer and associated throwing athlete to compete in) in Nicosia and most of the competitors were being housed in the hotel I was staying in – so the very quiet hotel was now not so quiet. Thankfully being professional athletes who were competing they were all pretty quiet and restrained for the whole weekend which didn’t interrupt my stay, or more importantly, sleep.