Terrible place - full of nasty tourists and naff English bars full of trash bags. It's really hard to find anything related to Cypriot culture or cuisine.
If you want to go to Cyprus go north - it beautiful and interesting.
Err....
I'm sure you realize it's pretty ironic for a Brit to be complaining about the (mostly British) nasty tourists and the naff English bars in Cyprus, right? In fact some folks might take it as downright offensive to hear Brits complain about how "terrible" the place is after you guys trashed it in the first place...
However, I don't take offence because since you're complaining you're obviously not one of the yobby drunken tourists who trashed the place. Not only am I not offended, in fact, but I'd go further and say that most of the blame lies not with the tourists themselves but with the locals who over-developed the place too rapidly and thus attracted low quality tourism in the first place.
(In their defence, Ayia Napa was a tourist village back in the 80s when it first started developing, so nobody had any clue about the tourism business and how to build up the place properly and attract high quality sustainable tourism. Plus, if the Turkish invasion taught us anything it was to make a quick buck while you could because you might not have a country tomorrow! Although ironically the experienced developers, people like Leptos who had hotels in Famagusta before the invasion, they went to Paphos and developed their resorts in a more tasteful and sustainable manner, because tehy knew the business and were good at it.)
However, although I don't take offense at you saying you don't like the place, I really should take offense at your suggestion that people should go and have a more "authentic" Cypriot experience in the occupied north. Just curious what you think makes it more authentic: the fact that you're staying in hotels built on authentically stolen land, or the fact that most of the Turkish Cypriots have actually emigrated to flee the repressive regime they have over there and the majority of the "authentic" population are actually settlers from Turkey?
However, since I genuinely believe that the Turkish-Cypriot leadership do not want a solution and the country's heading for a permanent partition, perhaps it really would be best for everyone if all the drunken louts infesting Ayia Napa would go entertain themselves over there. They bring next to no money into the economy anyway, and leave behind a path of urine and destruction. Therefore I don't take offence at anything you said, it's all good!
As a final aside though, I know Ayia Napa is properly devastated, but it's not nearly as bad elsewhere. Especially around Paphos where the OP's going. Speaking of whom, sorry if I'm trashing your thread mate, feel free to drop me an email (in trust) for advice on more places to go (including in the north).
Close..
British Refugee. Dad was RAF based there and was seconded to the UN for the duration of the conflict. I believe my old house is somewhere in no-mans land now
That was really moving man, just goes to show, doesn't matter where your family is from, you always form an attachment to the place you grow up.
