Traveling internationally? You get a plus one! And you get a plus one! And you get a plus one!
Basically, if you are flying to Cyprus, do what will make it a fun trip for you. Single? Bring a date or a friend! Got kids? Bring the lot of 'em! Your partner can't come? Bring a friend instead!
Domestic guests, your kids are invited as well.
The wedding events on Sunday September 27 will be an all day affair.
Optional programming for international guests will begin on Thursday evening, and will include things like an afternoon cruise and a tavern dinner, as well as a lot of informal and ad hoc activities.
We will be celebrating our marriage at Pernera Beach Hotel in Protaras, on the coastal promenade.
There is a long promenade (really long, about 4 km) connecting Protaras to Pernera, which is pretty much wall-to-wall large independent hotels, with a great variety of price points and styles. Our venue is in the northernmost section of the promenade, but any hotel along the promenade would be a nice and convenient place to stay. There are also some apartment-hotels and self-catering places along or immediately adjacent to the promenade (these are popular with Cypriots) - one you might check out is called Polyxenia Isaak Villas.
Along the promenade there are all-inclusive 5 star adult-only resorts and there are regular hotels, all with pool areas ranging from nice to amazing. We haven't stayed in them ourselves, but ones that have good reputations with Cypriots include Golden Coast, Constantinos the Great, and Vrysiana. If you want to be really convenient, you can stay at the venue itself, Pernera Beach Hotel. Rooms start around 250 Euro per night with breakfast, and you can upgrade to all-inclusive (this is a common option at other hotels as well). Alexis's family are fans of Crystal Springs, but it is just barely not connected to the boardwalk, so you'd need a car.
For best value along the promenade, we recommend TETYK, which is an acronym for the name of the Cypriot bankers' union, which owns the hotel as a perk for members, but in the off season the hotel is open to the public. We have stayed here several times ourselves and are quite happy with it for being a beachside hotel for around 100 Euro a night. The building and furnishings are dated and drab but the pool is good, the included breakfast buffet is enormous, and the rooms all have balconies. It's also a ten minute walk from Pernera Beach Hotel.
If you plan to have a car, you can also find a ton of options on Airbnb for apartments and apart-hotels in the area (but if you aren't along the boardwalk you'll have to drive everywhere). There are many lovely apartment complexes within a ten minute drive of the beaches, especially in the area along Kennedy Ave (also known as Kapparis Ave), north of the boardwalk area. We are generally able to find nice options on Airbnb starting around 80 Euro per night; these apartments also often have multiple rooms, so things scale well for families and households that pair up. You can also rent a villa! We haven't done this but it seems nice!
Feel free to ask us to vet the location of any particular property that you're looking at!
All beaches in Cyprus are open to the public by law. It's in the Constitution! So EVERY beach is fair game, and you don't have to pick a hotel based on the associated beach because you can just go to whichever one you want. In this part of the coastline, the beaches are mostly small coves. They're all well developed, with lounge chairs and umbrellas that you can rent by the day (for a few euro), and extremely clean.
Our preferred beaches are along the stretch of coastline just north of the boardwalk area. They're accessible by frequent bus or by car, but you can't walk between them.
You don't need-need a car in Cyprus, but if you want to do things other than go to wedding-related events and the beach, you will.
Car-free option:
There is a convenient bus service between Larnaca Airport and several stops along the Protaras beach promenade. If you'd like to avoid driving in Cyprus, you'll want to stay in one of the promenade hotels. Then you'll be able to walk to most wedding events and to many beaches, and can take the bus to farther flung beaches. But be forewarned that the sun is strong in Cyprus, even in late September; if you're as sensitive to the heat as Liz is, you might find that walking from place to place is less of an option than usual. City-to-city transit in Cyprus is limited but does exist. Limitedly.
Car option:
If you want more freedom or if you want to do tourism beyond beach-going, you'll have to rent a car. All road signs are in English, but you do have to be comfortable driving on the left (British system). Car rentals are inexpensive (much cheaper than in the US) and you can find most major European car rental companies at Larnaca Airport upon arrival.
You'll most likely want to fly into Larnaca Airport (LCA), which is about an hour by car or by shuttle bus from the Protaras area. The other major airport in Cyprus is Paphos (PFO), which is on the other side of the country, which is to say more like 2.5 hours from Protaras. So arriving in Paphos is by no means prohibitive, but you do need to plan on a significantly longer drive upon arrival (Paphos itself is really nice and worth spending a night, though! Larnaca is not).
You might also see listings for Ercan airport in Nicosia; don't fly there. That's on the occupied side of Cyprus, so flights are only from Turkey, and if you enter the island of Cyprus from the occupied side then you are illegally entering the EU and can get in trouble. However, you can depart from the occupied side if you'd like. This only makes sense if you want to travel in Turkey after the wedding, of course.
When you're leaving, the lounge at LCA happens to be the best lounge that Liz and Alexis have been to with their Priority Pass membership. If you have lounge access, build in time for a lounge visit!
First of all, if you're crossing the ocean, only come if you can make a vacation out of it and spend at least a week abroad – it's just too long a trip to be worth it otherwise! You'll either want to plan on a week in Cyprus (if you're excited to explore the island by car and see more than just the wedding area) with a simple thru-booking flight itinerary, or 3-4 days in Cyprus with an open-jaw or stopover itinerary that gives you however long you'd like to spend elsewhere in Europe. More on how all that works below!
There are no direct flights from North America to Cyprus, and depending on your origin city, there might not be a ton of options for decent layover itineraries either. Coming from Boston, we find that the best thru-itineraries tend to be through Heathrow on British Airways or through Germany on Lufthansa.
But it's a long trip and there are lot more European short haul and budget airlines flying to Cyprus than there are transatlantic carriers. This lends itself very nicely to having a DIY stopover – Liz does this pretty much every time she goes to Cyprus. Consider booking a round trip to somewhere like London or Paris on your transatlantic carrier of choice, and then nesting another round trip on a European airline to get you from the stopover to LCA, with as many days in London/Paris on either side as you'd like! If you're flexible about the stopover location, you may very well find that this results in cheaper or at least equivalent airfare than booking thru-flights. Note that most cities in Europe don't have daily flights to LCA, more like 2-3 times per week, so if you have a particular stopover location in mind you may need to play around with the dates. The greatest number of daily direct flights to LCA will be from London airports (4 hours) or Athens (1 hour).
If you want to do your other travel in the eastern Med, you'll probably want to book an open-jaw itinerary. For instance, something like NYC-LCA then ATH-NYC, with a separate LCA-ATH flight, should work out nicely. A number of the major Greek islands do have direct flights to major American airports, though not daily. Tragically there are no ferries from Cyprus to anywhere, but once you get yourself into Greece's islands they're all connected by ferry to each other and to Athens. The overnight ferries are great if you get yourself a little stateroom!
In September 2025, flights between the US and Europe were unusually affordable; Alexis was able to do a thru-booking for about $600 round trip, and Liz added in a week-long stop in Berlin for around $800 for all flights. Those were good prices, but with flexibility we are generally able to get ourselves from Boston to Larnaca and back for under a grand.
As of writing, and assuming a Boston origin, there's a pretty solid thru-itinerary on Austrian Airlines with a short layover in Vienna for $870, available on several dates adjacent to the wedding. Meanwhile, there are plenty of late September non-stop return flights to London around $500, with return flights on budget airlines between London airports and LCA around $200.
Nicosia: the land-locked capitol, the last divided city in Europe, and Alexis's hometown. The medieval walled center of Nicosia was built by the Venetians and split in half by the UN in 1974, so it's a charming warren of little winding streets lined with cafes and old homes, some of which end abruptly at a military guardhouse. It's a very interesting place to visit! The old city is especially lively at night, with cobblestone alleys full of cafe tables, and you can follow your ears to the next bar (or a cat to next restaurant). If you're interested in getting a better on-the-ground understanding of the division of the island, you can also carry your passport and go through the pedestrian crossing to the Turkish-occupied northern side of the city, which very much feels like the same city but in a parallel universe. It is possible to take an intercity bus from Protaras to Nicosia.
Troodos mountains: Mountain range dotted with villages in the center of the island. The mountain villages are much more green than coastal Cyprus, and should be cooler. You can stroll little villages, go for hikes, stay in quaint rural guesthouses, and eat trout from cold mountain streams. You would need a car to visit here.
Limassol / Larnaca - these cities are not interesting. Come back in March to catch the migrating flamingos.
Paphos: Coastal city with a walkable medieval and Ottoman center, with a nice restaurant and nightlife scene. The beaches here are rockier and less resort-ified than the ones in Protaras, and you can catch an ocean sunset because it's the west coast. There's a cool shipwreck you can see from the coast. If you are flying via PFO for a leg of your journey, it's worth spending a night in Paphos.
Famagusta: A clarification is in order! The wedding is in Protaras, which is a village on the Famagusta peninsula. The district where you'll be staying is called Famagusta, but it does not include the city of Famagusta, Alexis's father's hometown, because the city is on the occupied side of the island just a handful of kilometers away. If you are in the ocean in Protaras and swim just outside the cove and turn around to look back towards shore, you can see the city of Famagusta. If you'd like to visit the city, you'll either need to drive across the UN checkpoint or take a tour; the bus tours offered by Mr John, a refugee from Famagusta like Alexis's dad, are well regarded day trips that originate from Protaras.
Ayia Napa: While we mention the Protaras "strip" in the next section, this is the real Cypriot Vegas, by which we mean it is lined with nightclubs and full of stag and hen dos (that's bachelor/ette parties to the Americans, but the groups there will be definitely of the Commonwealth-y stag-and-hen variety). The old port area is really nice for a dinner out, and there's a small amusement park as well. It's about a half hour drive from Protaras, and you can get there by frequent bus as well.
Ancient stuff: You'll need a car to visit any of Cyprus's ruins. The ancient amphitheater at Kourion is about an hour away, and it's very cool, but there aren't likely to be any performances there while we're in town (it's only rarely used); maybe we'll organize our own? In the other direction you can find the ruins of ancient city of Salamis. This is in the Turkish occupied part of the island, near the city of Famagusta (also home to the Venetian castle where Othello was set). There's a lot to see at the ruins, although when we visited it was hellishly hot and, like all ruins, there were no roofs. Maybe you'll luck into a cloud though. Realistically, if you're excited about ancient ruins, go to Greece.
Beach! This is a place for beach. The water is warm and clear, the sun is strong, and the vibe is chill. There are no tides and no undertows; for those of us used to the Atlantic, the swimming is remarkably safe and easy. It's a great place for beginner snorkeling, no tours or guided trips required; just buy a snorkel and mask at a kiosk and walk into the sea. If you're lucky you might see a green sea turtle!
Cats! Cyprus is a cat island; the earliest archeological evidence of human-cat friendship is from Cyprus! (Take that, Egypt!) There are infinite numbers of friendly, healthy cats snoozing on the beach loungers, schmoozing the patrons of the seafood restaurants, and generally living the best cat life. One of our favorite games while walking down the promenade at night is to compete to see who first spots the greatest number of cats. See if you can befriend any of the aptly named local breed, the Aphrodite's Giant! Meow!
At various point along the promenade you can also arrange for watersports like waterskiing, jetski rentals, and paragliding. Nearer to Larnaca there's a famous shipwreck that's supposed to be a good scubadiving destination.
If jetlag has you up early, the beach is east-facing so you can catch a really nice sunrise.
Parallel to the promenade is a boulevard that Alexis's family refers to as "the strip," because it is tacky. But if you are looking for a Flintstones theme restaurant, a full English breakfast in a rugby bar, or a Madonna impersonator, then head to the strip!