Explore Cyprus

Paphos

The ancient harbour city on Cyprus's southwest coast was the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite and served as the island's Roman capital — its archaeological park contains some of the finest Roman floor mosaics in the Eastern Mediterranean, depicting scenes from Greek mythology in extraordinary condition beneath protective canopies. The old harbour fort, the Tomb of the Kings cut into the coastal cliffs, and the sea cave at Aphrodite's Rock just outside town make Paphos one of the most rewarding classical sites in the entire region.

Ayia Napa

The resort town on Cyprus's southeast tip built its reputation on some of the finest beaches in the Mediterranean — Nissi Beach, with its shallow turquoise water and connecting sand bar to a small island, ranks among Europe's most photographed stretches of sand — and on a club scene that at its peak in the 2000s rivalled Ibiza for British youth tourism. The surrounding Cape Greco National Forest Park and the sea caves accessible by kayak along the rocky coastline offer a more tranquil side to a place better known for its nightlife.

Limassol

Cyprus's second city and busiest port has reinvented itself as the island's most cosmopolitan destination — the old town around the medieval castle has been thoroughly gentrified into a café and restaurant district, while the seaside promenade stretching east to Amathus has become one of the most developed tourism corridors in Cyprus. The annual Wine Festival in September, held in the city's Municipal Gardens with free unlimited tastings from Cypriot producers, draws tens of thousands of visitors and celebrates the Commandaria wine region in the hills above.

Nicosia

The last divided capital in Europe, split since 1974 by a UN buffer zone that cuts through the old walled city, gives Nicosia a political drama few other European capitals can match — visitors can cross between the Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot north on foot through the Ledra Street checkpoint, making a single afternoon's walk a journey across two very different worlds. The Leventis Municipal Museum, the Cyprus Archaeological Museum, and the grandeur of the Venetian walls encircling the old town make the southern side alone worth a half-day's exploration.

Larnaca

Built over ancient Kition, one of the great Phoenician city-kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean, Larnaca is best known to divers as the home of the Zenobia — a Swedish roll-on roll-off ferry that sank on its maiden voyage in 1980 and now lies on its side 42 metres down, regarded as one of the top ten wreck dives in the world. The Church of Saint Lazarus in the old town, where the patron saint of the island is believed to have served as bishop after his resurrection, draws pilgrims year-round, and the salt lake beside the airport fills each winter with flamingos.

Protaras & Fig Tree Bay

The beach resort of Protaras, just north of Ayia Napa, is built around Fig Tree Bay — a sheltered cove of powdery white sand and vivid turquoise water that consistently ranks among Europe's best beaches, its calm shallow waters making it particularly suited to families with children. The surrounding coastline alternates between resort-lined sandy stretches and deserted rocky coves reachable on foot or by sea kayak, with the Cape Greco cliffs between Protaras and Ayia Napa offering sea caves and natural arches of extraordinary geological drama.

Troodos Mountains

The pine-covered massif rising to 1,952 metres at Mount Olympos in the centre of Cyprus is an entirely different island from the coastal resorts — a landscape of cool air, monastery bells, and Byzantine painted churches so extraordinary that UNESCO inscribed ten of them as World Heritage Sites, their interiors covered floor to ceiling with 11th-to-16th-century frescoes whose preservation owes everything to the mountain isolation. In winter, Cyprus's only ski resort operates on Olympos's upper slopes; in summer, the Caledonian Trail and Atalante Trail lead through cedar and black pine forests past waterfalls.

Kyrenia (Girne)

The horseshoe harbour of Kyrenia in northern Cyprus, overlooked by a Byzantine castle that the Venetians and then the Ottomans successively fortified, is by many measures the most picturesque scene on the island — a ring of old stone warehouses converted to fish restaurants reflected in the still water of one of the smallest and most perfectly formed natural harbours in the Mediterranean. The Kyrenia Castle's shipwreck museum contains a 4th-century BCE Greek merchant vessel, the oldest sea-going vessel ever recovered intact, displayed in the room in which it was excavated.

Famagusta (Gazimagusa)

Behind the massive Venetian walls of Famagusta — among the best-preserved medieval fortifications in the world, built to withstand cannon fire in the 16th century — stands a city whose Gothic cathedral was converted into the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque when the Ottomans took it in 1571, its minaret incongruously rising from a facade that echoes Notre-Dame de Paris. The ghost town of Varosha, the sealed-off former Greek Cypriot tourist district abandoned since 1974, has been partially reopened in stages since 2020, its decaying 1970s hotels visible through the fence.

Kourion

Perched on a sea cliff above a long sandy beach west of Limassol, the ancient city-kingdom of Kourion preserves some of the most dramatically sited classical ruins in the eastern Mediterranean — a Greco-Roman theatre reconstructed to host summer performances where the seats look out over the Mediterranean, a 5th-century early Christian basilica, and a House of Eustolios with exquisite mosaic floors. The adjacent sanctuary of Apollo Hylates, a kilometre up the road, was one of the most important religious centres of ancient Cyprus.

Coral Bay

The sweeping sandy beach of Coral Bay, 10 kilometres north of Paphos, is one of the island's most popular family destinations — a wide arc of golden sand with calm, shallow water that is safe for swimming even for young children, backed by a strip of tavernas and watersports operators. Just north of the bay, the cliffs above the sea mark the beginning of the Akamas Peninsula wilderness, making Coral Bay a natural staging point for exploring the most pristine natural environment left on Cyprus.

Akamas Peninsula

The wild headland at the northwest tip of Cyprus, designated as a national park, preserves the last large area of undeveloped coastline on the island — a landscape of rock, scrub, and deserted beaches where loggerhead and green sea turtles nest undisturbed in summer. The Baths of Aphrodite, where the goddess supposedly bathed, anchor a network of walking trails through the peninsula's dry gorges and cliff paths; the blue lagoon at Akamas Bay, reachable only on foot or by boat, is one of the most beautiful swimming spots in Cyprus.

Omodos

The cobblestone village of Omodos in the foothills of Troodos is the most visited of the wine-producing villages that define the Commandaria region — the streets between the stone houses and the 16th-century Holy Cross Monastery are lined with small wineries producing Commandaria, a rich amber dessert wine made from sun-dried grapes that has been produced continuously on Cyprus for over 5,000 years, making it arguably the world's oldest named wine still in production. The monastery's relic of the True Cross draws Orthodox pilgrims; the terrace tavernas draw everyone else.

Kakopetria

The mountain village of Kakopetria in the Solea Valley is both the most architecturally intact old settlement in the Troodos foothills and the gateway to the most densely concentrated cluster of UNESCO-listed painted churches — the Church of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis, just outside the village, contains frescoes spanning eight centuries of Byzantine art from the 11th to the 17th century. The restored old quarter with its jutting wooden balconies over the river gorge is one of the best examples of traditional Cypriot mountain architecture still lived in.

Cape Greco

The rocky headland forming the southeastern tip of Cyprus is a national forest park of extraordinary coastal beauty — sea caves carved by wave action into the limestone cliffs, including the famous Blue Lagoon accessible by kayak, and the natural arch bridge of Kamara tou Koraka rising from the sea. The underwater world around Cape Greco, where deep walls and pinnacles drop into the clear Levantine waters, supports some of the best scuba diving on the island outside of the Zenobia wreck, with dense populations of Mediterranean grouper, sea bream, and octopus.

The coastal city of Paphos preserves two millennia of continuous human occupation in a remarkably compact archaeological zone — Nea Paphos (New Paphos) contains the House of Dionysos and three other Roman villas whose floor mosaics, depicting the myths of Dionysos, Theseus, and Ganymede, are among the finest and best-preserved in the entire Eastern Mediterranean. Paleo Paphos (Old Paphos) at Kouklia preserves the sanctuary of Aphrodite, the most famous goddess cult site in the ancient world, where her legendary birth from the sea foam was celebrated for over a thousand years.

Ten Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches scattered through the Troodos mountain valleys preserve an unbroken tradition of religious fresco painting from the 11th to the 17th century, their interiors covered floor to ceiling with some of the finest surviving Byzantine artwork in existence — the Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis and Panagia Podithou being among the most complete. Their survival owes everything to the mountain isolation that kept them from Ottoman conversion and the damp preservation of their stone interiors, making the Troodos churches a direct visual link to the Byzantine world that all but disappeared elsewhere after 1453.

The Neolithic settlement of Choirokoitia, occupied between approximately 7000 and 4000 BCE, is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the eastern Mediterranean — a dense cluster of circular mud-brick and stone houses on a hillside overlooking the Maroni River that provides exceptional evidence of early organised human settlement on Cyprus. The site preserves the remains of a community that practised agriculture, animal husbandry, and sophisticated burial customs, burying their dead beneath the floors of their homes; several reconstructed dwellings at the entrance allow visitors to understand the scale and form of the original settlement.