Thursday 31 May 2007

Limassol Coast Road

The stretch between the Arsinoe Hotel and Limassol centre is split into three main sections. Stretching out from the centre is the heavily built up area that is mainly lined by apartment blocks along the roadside and the main promenade along the beach. Debhamans pretty much marks the furthest edge of this area and a little way further on, the 'tourist' area starts which although not quite as high rise is more packed with souvenier shops, bars and restaurants. Through this area the road cuts away from the coast a little and allows for a line of hotels to be built between the road and the coast itself. Unfortunately this seems to mean a lack of bars along the beach itself except for those in the hotels. There were a few remains of closed down bars and I can only guess that these have been bought out by the hotels to stop their guests going next door forcheaper drinks. This middle section is actually refered to as the "Tourist Area" on the street signs and can cause confusion as one family we met were assuming the tourist area would be the centre of town and hence were walking in completely the wrong direction having followed these signs.
The tourist stretch fizzles out into a much less built up area in which the Hotel Arsinoe sits. There are still bars and restaurants but the businesses are no where near as crowded and you don't find the big chain names like Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Burger King etc. that the tourist stretch sports. This area too tends to have the more expensive hotels at the far end such as the Amatheus, Hawaii Beach and the Four Seasons.

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