Walking in Southern Cyprus or exploring Cyprus by car is an experience to treasure for a lifetime — or, as the Cypriots put it, ‘Once been, never forgotten’. You can stroll for miles along the southeast coast or hike through the woods in the famous Troodos Mountains (stopping for lunch at one of the trout farms). But in recent years most walkers are exploring the ‘far west’ — the Akamas Peninsula, now a nature reserve, where the Tourism Organisation has established some fine nature trails. (In all, there are 52 nature trails on the island, some short and easy, others very demanding.)
Area covered: Greek (southern) Cyprus; North Cyprus is not included, except on the touring map (where place names are shown in Turkish). (Sunflower has a separate guide for North Cyprus.) Cyprus is a large island; the drives and walks radiate from three main bases: Pafos (Paphos), Lemesos (Limassol) and Larnaka (Larnaca).
The best months for walking in Cyprus are March to June and September/October.
Walkers keen to know more about Cyprus and try some walks beyond the scope of this book may like to visit cypruswalks.net. This site, run by Mark and Jane who spend much of the year on the island, is updated frequently (at least annually, which is far better than most other “non-professional” websites!). They check our Sunflower walks, but they also go further afield. And their website makes clear the date when they have last checked a walk, bravo!
I like the way the walks link in with the car tours. The different levels of difficulty and alternative suggestions for walks made this a very flexible book to use and an excellent guide for exploring Cyprus. (Roma, Amazon)
Having always been a reader of Lonely Planet and Rough Guides I was curious to see how the Sunflower guides compared in terms of information and ease of reading. Very pleased to find a travel guide packed with useful information backed up by clear and easy to understand mapping, something that I have felt lacking in the other travel guides mentioned. It is clear that the authors have a detailed first hand knowledge of the locations they are visiting and this comes across throughout the book. (AC, Amazon)