My friend from the Netherlands and I were trying to decide where we would meet up in May 2014. I lived in Abu Dhabi at that time and she was in the Netherlands, so we were thinking of a place somewhere in the middle.

The company I was working for was based in Cyprus, consequently I had a few colleagues from Cyprus. They convinced me of the beauty of their island, so I in turn convinced my friend to meet me there.

Also, we decided not to stay in one place. Instead, we wanted to travel around the country in one week time (my colleague was so kind to borrow us his car for this purpose).

Our first stop was Larnaca. The airport is there, so we figured it would be a good starting base for our holidays.

Hotel

We stayed in Hotel Opéra for one night. When we entered the hotel we found out how super friendly the Cypriots are; they gave us advise on where to have dinner in the city and which places would be nice to visit. The hotel itself is really homely and it has a cute patio.

Unfortunately, the moment we arrived in Larnaca it started raining. My friends and colleagues assured me that May would be a perfect time to visit, because the weather wouldn’t be too hot and there would certainly not be any rain. Well, there was rain. Lots of it.

It put a damper on our Larnaca plans. I obviously only brought summer clothes (living in Abu Dhabi, I don’t own anything else), so whenever we ventured outside I was freezing in my sandals and dresses.

Sheftalia for Dinner

We didn’t let the rain keep us indoors though, so we made our way to a tavern that was recommended to us. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name. This is a memorable location for me , because this is where I fell in love with Sheftalia. It’s a kind of pork sausage and it’s delicious. The tavern itself was really nice as well. However, Dutch eating standards and Cypriot ones don’t mix so we were alone in the restaurant from 7pm until we left at 9pm and that’s when it became busy.

Larnaca Promenade

After dinner we went for a few cocktails along the promenade, which is conveniently located close to the hotel and the restaurant (so we didn’t have to suffer in the rain for too long). When we woke up in the morning we found out that the weather wasn’t any better. Keen to leave Larnaca as fast as possible (in the hopes that our next location would see a bit more sun) we went to the promenade for breakfast.

Church of Saint Lazarus

Most cities don’t look nice when it’s rainy. Neither does Larnaca. Even though our hotel was right next to Church of Saint Lazarus, we took pictures in passing but we never went inside or around to explore it further.

Conclusion

It is very possible that Larnaca is a vibrant beautiful city. Unfortunately with the rain it seemed empty and forsaken. I couldn’t wait to leave and head to our next location. In that sense it was lucky we chose to travel from town to town around Cyprus. That way we didn’t have to stick around one location too long. Our next stop was Limassol, on the way there we made a few stop including a lunch stop in Zygi which I will describe in the next post.

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