Limassol

Limassol is Cyprus at its most cosmopolitan — a coastal city that works, dines and parties year-round, strung along a three-kilometre seafront promenade between an old port and a superyacht marina. Behind the palm-lined Molos, the Old Town tangles into tavernas and traditional shops around the medieval castle where, in 1191, Richard the Lionheart married and crowned his queen. Above it all rises a new skyline of glass towers, and on the western edge sits one of Europe’s first integrated casino resorts. But Limassol’s real reach is inland and back in time: the Greco-Roman theatre of Kourion on its clifftop, the south-facing Troodos wine villages, and Commandaria — the world’s oldest named wine still in production, poured here since antiquity. Warm almost the whole year and long a favourite of Israeli travellers for its short hop and easy pace, Limassol pairs a lively modern city with three thousand years of history a short drive away.

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