Getting Around Cyprus

Arriving, and why the airport matters here

Two international airports serve the south of the island, one on the southeast coast and one on the southwest, and between them they cover the whole of the Republic comfortably — nothing in the south is more than a couple of hours from one of them. Which one you pick is mostly a question of which end of the island you are staying at.

The north has its own airport, and the choice of arrival point is not merely logistical here: entering the island through the north rather than the south can complicate a traveller's legal position, and the standard advice is to arrive through the Republic. This is the single entry decision on Cyprus that carries consequences beyond convenience, and it is worth settling before booking rather than after. Confirm the current position for your own nationality against an official source.

A car island, and it drives on the left

Assume you are hiring a car. Almost everything worth the journey here — the mountain churches, the archaeological sites, the wilder coast, the wine villages — sits somewhere a bus does not usefully go, and the difference between having a car and not having one is the difference between seeing the island and seeing its resorts.

Traffic drives on the left, a legacy of the British administration, and this is the detail that produces most of the trouble. Visitors arriving from mainland Europe are frequently unaware until they are handed the keys. The dangerous moments are not motorway driving, which sorts itself out quickly, but the small ones: pulling out of a quiet car park, taking a roundabout in a village, or turning across traffic after a long lunch. Give it a deliberate first hour rather than assuming it will come naturally.

Roads in the south are good — genuine motorway between the main towns, well surfaced and well signed, with signs in Greek and English. Distances on them are short. Parking inside the old quarters of the coastal towns is the usual Mediterranean problem, and the usual Mediterranean answer applies: park on the edge and walk in.

No railway, and what the buses actually do

Cyprus has no passenger railway at all. There is no rail option to weigh up, which surprises people who assume an island this developed must have one, and it is worth knowing before you plan a car-free trip that will not work.

The buses are real and they are cheap. Intercity services connect the main southern towns reliably, and the towns themselves have urban networks that will get you to a beach or across a city perfectly well. What they will not do is take you to a mountain church, an archaeological site outside a town, or a trailhead. Services to villages exist for the villagers rather than for visitors, which usually means one bus in the morning and one back in the afternoon, and nothing at weekends.

Shared service taxis run between the main towns on fixed routes and are a reasonable middle option — more frequent than the bus, cheaper than a private taxi, and they pick up and drop off at addresses. For a single excursion into the mountains, an organised day trip from a coastal base often costs less than a day's car hire and removes the driving.

Short distances, slow mountains

The island is a little over two hundred kilometres end to end, and on the southern motorways that is genuinely quick. People plan Cyprus as though it were much bigger than it is, and then plan the mountains as though they were the same as the motorway, which is the error that goes the other way.

Once you leave the coastal plain the roads start turning and the arithmetic changes completely. A mountain village forty kilometres away is not a forty-minute drive; it is a slow, winding, continuously climbing hour or more, and doing three of those in a day is a full day. Anyone prone to travel sickness will notice. In winter the high roads carry snow — the range is high enough for a small ski operation — and routes close rather than merely slowing.

Crossing between the two sides

The line dividing the island can be crossed at several official points, including a pedestrian crossing in the middle of the old city of the capital and vehicle crossings elsewhere. Crossing on foot in the capital is quick and undramatic and is how most visitors do it. You will need your passport.

Taking a hire car across is where the practical difficulties live, and there are two of them. First, your rental agreement may simply forbid it — a good many southern hire companies prohibit taking their vehicles across, and doing it anyway will void your cover. Read the agreement before you plan the day, not at the barrier. Second, motor insurance issued in the south generally does not extend across the line, so separate cover has to be arranged at the crossing itself for the vehicle to be legally insured.

There are also restrictions on what goods may be carried across, and both the crossing arrangements and those restrictions change. Check the current position from an official source close to your travel dates. The one thing that is stable is the sequence: arrive through the south, cross from there, and your position stays straightforward.