Larnaca

Larnaca district is where walking in Cyprus is mostly about what you walk to: a Neolithic settlement, a fourth-century monastery, a pair of stone villages. Thirteen trails run across the hills between Lefkara, Stavrovouni and the coast, and most of them are short: seven are under 3 km, and none takes more than a morning.

The lay of the land

This is open country. Low hills, farmland, garrigue and stone villages, with the sea usually somewhere in view. Stavrovouni is the exception in effort: a 4.8 km circuit with 326 m of climb around the rocky peak crowned by the monastery, steep and technical enough to want proper shoes. Agia Varvara – Stavrovouni takes the direct line up the same hill, 300 m in just over 2 km.

Everything else is gentler. Choirokoitia is a 1.1 km walk through the Maroni river valley beside the UNESCO-listed Neolithic settlement — 7,000-year-old ruins of one of the Mediterranean's earliest farming communities, with a museum on site. Lefkara – Kato Drys drops 2.5 km between two traditional villages past the church of Metamorfoseos tou Sotiros. Oroklini is the local favourite, a 7.9 km hillside circuit with sea, mountains and — in spring — meadows of wildflowers. And Vritzi packs canyon forms and caves into 600 metres, which makes it a very good short walk with children.

When to go

November through April. Larnaca has no shade to speak of: the shadiest trail in the district, Gyrillithkia, still stands in direct sun for 8.9 hours of a midsummer day, and Oroklini takes 12.8. Not one route here reaches our shady tier. In spring the same exposure is the attraction — the hillsides around Oroklini and Vavla flower properly — and in winter these are among the most pleasant walks on the island. In July and August, treat them as early-morning outings only.

Four to start with

• Choirokoitia — a short valley walk you can pair with a UNESCO World Heritage site.
• Oroklini — the district's most-walked circuit, with flexible distance and spring flowers.
• Stavrovouni — the serious one, around a 750 m peak with one of Cyprus's oldest monasteries on top.
• Lefkara – Kato Drys — an hour downhill between two of the prettiest villages in the district.

Practical notes

Eight picnic sites are spread across the district and four have drinking water — Dasaki Achnas, Kornos, Oroklini and Rizoelia. Since nothing here is shaded, water and a hat matter more than they would for the same distance in the mountains.

Lefkara makes the best base: it sits within a few minutes of the village trails and the Stavrovouni approaches, and it has somewhere to eat afterwards. Note that the Lefkara routes cross and briefly follow roads without footpaths, so keep an eye out for traffic. The Stavrovouni circuit is the one route here that genuinely earns its "demanding" label — steep, rough underfoot, and better attempted with the whole morning free.