Cyprus Nature Trails

Cyprus is a walking island for most of the year, which surprises people who only know it as a beach destination. Between October and May the weather does the work for you, and in high summer the Troodos sits high enough to stay bearable when the coast does not. This site documents 99 marked nature trails, listed by district further down the page.

Where the walking is

Four areas hold most of it. The Troodos range is the centre of gravity, with 20 of the trails documented here running through the forest around Troodos square, Platres, Prodromos and Pedoulas. The Paphos Forest accounts for another 10, remote and much less walked. The Akamas Peninsula in the north-west has 9, running out over open scrub and sea cliffs rather than under trees. Closer to the capital, Athalassa has 5 easy trails on the edge of Nicosia.

The ones people come for

The Caledonia Nature Trail follows a stream down from near Platres to the Caledonia waterfall, and is the busiest walk on the island for good reason — it is shaded, it has water running beside it most of the year, and it ends at something worth arriving at. The Atalanti Nature Trail is the long one, running 14 kilometres around the flank of Mount Olympus through black pine, and the Persefoni Nature Trail above Platres opens out to one of the better views in the range.

On the west coast, the Avakas Gorge is the one walk most visitors have heard of: a narrowing limestone gorge on the edge of the Akamas that closes to a few metres wide, with stream crossings along the way. The Smigies Nature Trail starts from the picnic site of the same name above Neo Chorio and gives the Akamas without the crowds. In the south, the Petra tou Romiou Nature Trail runs 7.1 kilometres above the coast at Aphrodite’s Rock, and the Millomeri Waterfall Nature Trail is a short one — 1.2 kilometres and about half an hour from the church at Platres — that ends at a waterfall.

What to expect

Most of these are Forestry Department nature trails rather than mountain routes. They are waymarked, they mostly run between 1 and 9 kilometres, and a good number are circular or can be made circular by adding a linking section. Individual trail pages here give the starting point, the length and the walking time, because those are the three things that decide whether a walk fits the afternoon you actually have.

Several start from or pass a picnic site, which is usually the easiest place to park and the only place with water. Trails in the Troodos are shaded and cool; Akamas trails are neither, and in summer they are genuinely hot with no shelter and no water on the route. Carry more water than seems necessary, start early, and check for fire restrictions in the dry months, when access to some forest areas is closed.

When to go

Spring is the best of it. From late February through April the Troodos and the Akamas are green, the streams are running and the orchids and cyclamen are out. Autumn is drier but comfortable and much quieter. Summer walking is realistic only in the high Troodos or at first light. Winter brings snow above roughly 1,500 metres, which closes some of the higher trails but makes the lower ones unusually pleasant.

For the trails worth starting with, when to walk them and what to carry, see our guide to hiking in Cyprus.