National Geographic Traveller - UK (2020-07 & 2020-08)

IMAGES: GETTY; AMARA

W

hat will the future judge to be

beautiful? I often wonder this

while travelling through places

that don’t conform to a guidebook ideal of

prettiness. In our carefully curated world,

where every town has a tourist board and

every food trend a champion, it’s rare to

find a place that hasn’t airbrushed out its

blemishes and imperfections to appease

the tourists. Yet, for those of us with a keen

interest in local flavours, these can be among

the most rewarding places to explore. And,

so it proved with Limassol.

For a winter-weary Brit like me, Cyprus

offers warm reprieve. On arrival, I find the

coastline thick with buildings but also alight

with sunshine, the Mediterranean glinting

beyond. My driver — a child during the

Turkish invasion of 1974 — recalls this entire

stretch as empty land, save the ruins of

Amathus, one of Cyprus’s ancient kingdoms,

conquered by the Persians, Romans,

Byzantines and Arabs. As a boy, he used to

play here, dipping into the Mediterranean at

will. Still today, he tells me, “if I don’t see the

sea for two or three days, I get stress”.

Now it’s a different sort of playground. Just

beside Amathus is Amara, a five-star hotel,

constructed on several levels, all facing the

sea. The spa had to be built around one of

Amathus’ ancient walls. Everything else is

brand new and very elegant, fashioned from

local wood, travertine and granite. It’s not

Limassol’s first luxury hotel but it’s certainly

the only one with restaurants helmed by

global gastronomic heavyweights Nobu

Matsuhisa and Giorgio Locatelli.

This is the new Cyprus. But there’s a lot

of value in the old, too. Limassol’s recently

redeveloped port has restaurants with sea

views and decent fish, but rather than seek

out these shiny new premises, I go looking for

older wineries instead. Usually beautiful and

often under-explored, they can be great places

to dine — or at least ask for recommendations.

Winemakers know the best local restaurants

— they are, after all, the ones to supply these

establishments with wine.

Over the centuries, the Cypriot city of Limassol has absorbed the flavours of

the Mediterranean and Middle East, while its vineyards have proved equally

adaptable, nurturing both local and international grapes. Words: Nina Caplan

LIMASSOL

EAT

ABOVE: Street cafe’s

with tourists in Omodos

village, Limassol District

RIGHT: Grilled octopus at

Armyra by Papaioannou

restaurant, at Amara

44 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel