Last week my family and I went on a mini-holiday to Limassol for two nights and two-and-a-half days, which many found strange. After all, locals tend to holiday in Pafos and Protaras/Agia Napa for a beach break, or the mountains for some cool respite, but Limassol is generally considered to be a non-holiday destination for those who live here.
Having done both Pafos and the Famagusta areas in previous years and finding them to be lacking in good family activities, we actually had an amazing time and crammed in the zoo, marina, castle, mall, Science Museum and waterpark in our short time there, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed.
It was also very interesting to see the differences in Limassol and Larnaca and the two are indeed so different that at times I thought we were in a different country!
For one – and I don't like to generalise but there seemed to be a pattern – drivers in Limassol routinely run red lights. Hubby thought it must be because the seafront road is so long and has so many sets of traffic lights that residents of the big town have lost their patience driving down the coastal road. Personally, the coastal road is way too long for my liking and I much prefer our compact Finikoudes. The beaches along that vast strip also feel too close to the road; more exposed with too little pavement separating sand from tarmac. But I could see more facilities for children than we have in Larnaca with most beaches including a playground of some sort, definitely something we could do with having more of in Larnaca.
I do have to say that the new marina is marvellous and residents certainly think so too judging by the way they flocked there at night. It is truly a lovely place to have a meal or drink, and I hope that we too will get our marina soon and that it will be just as charming. My only criticism of it would be that one company that owns many fast food franchises dominates for dining and drinking, and this seems to be contradicting the luxury element that the marina boasts of itself. It could definitely benefit from a greater variety of options and a higher quality of them. When the time comes for our marina to come to life, I do hope that the powers-that-be will watch and learn from their Limassol counterpart.
Limassol also has an unusually high number of frozen yogurt and ice-cream places, but they are also considerably more expensive than Larnaca's. I was shocked to find a small (and it was small) yogurt ice-cream was €3. Now, this may seem to be trivial, but I love my frozen yogurt and normally go for a large… a pleasure taken away from me by the price tag of €4.50 for a large that was the size of Larnaca's medium! I might have just got unlucky but methinks that for them to be charging that on a road lined with competition, it must be the standard.
I think we saw and did the best that Limassol has to offer and enjoyed every minute, but coming from a smaller town, Limassol can be intimidating in its size and chaos, which made me appreciate our compact nature and bring to mind the old adage of 'there's no place like home'.
