Chasing the Fionist Dream

Back in December 2024, I, Fiona, purchased Wizz tickets for us all to fly to Budapest and fly home via Vienna a week later in May 2025. I celebrated a big birthday this year and the family vacation was my gift. We were going to take the train and explore both cities. For five months, I researched Budapest and Vienna and built a rigorous child-friendly itinerary that would take us through all of the interesting sites and experiences of both European capitals. We saved up and created a budget of 15,000 shekels for this trip and booked Airbnbs in both cities with free cancelation policies.

Then a Houthi ballistic missile fell on an orchard on the premises of Ben Gurion Airport, very miraculously missing the terminals and planes, which would have been much more catastrophic. Shortly thereafter, our flight was cancelled. (It should be noted that the airport was gallantly up and running like usual 30 minutes later, but the foreign airlines were too spooked to continue.)

Fortunately, we were able to get a full refund on the flights and accommodations we booked for our original trip. Having already set aside money for a family getaway and gotten vacation days approved from work, we decided to go on a trip anyway. I checked to see where my Wizz refund money would take us on El Al – and the answer was Larnaca, Cyprus. I had heard that Larnaca itself didn’t seem to have much going for it, and while I had been to and enjoyed Paphos with friends, it’s almost a two hour drive from Larnaca. Some quick Googling showed that Limassol, about halfway between the two cities, has a bunch of things to do and is super child-friendly. That seemed promising, so we booked new flights and accommodations. A few days later, we were on our way.

Since we already had our vacation budget set aside and knew that this trip would be cheaper than our original plans, we decided to be generous to ourselves on this trip, we didn’t really budget and pretty much said yes to everything. Make sure to read to the end to find out how much we spent.

So, what did we do? What did we buy? And how much did it all cost us?

Day 1 – Landing, cabbing, and settling in

After a long wait at Ben Gurion, including a delayed flight and Finn’s belt breaking while we passed through security, we finally landed in Larnaca at around 8:30 pm. We made our way through customs, and found our pre-arranged cabbie who was waiting for us. We buckled ourselves into the cab hoping our kids would sleep during the 45 minute ride to Limassol, but they chose to serenade us with Israeli songs the whole time instead. Fine with us. I joined along for some of the songs too. We finally made it to Chrielka Hotel, checked in to our one-bedroom suite (with a kitchen), tucked ourselves in, and headed to bed.

Day 2 – Black sand, Greek gods, and zoo animals

After eating food we brought with us for breakfast, we headed to a local supermarket for some food shopping. We stocked up items from Cyprus’ kosher list, carried them back to our suite, and quickly stocked our kitchen. We changed into bathing suits and crossed the street to the beach.

Did you know that the sand on Limassol’s beaches is black?? It’s because of all of the volcanic rock in it. Yeah, we were pretty surprised by that too.

We had a great time playing in the black sand and hanging out in the sea. The water could have been a tad warmer, but it was pretty comfortable for May.

When we had had enough of the beach, we headed back to the hotel, where we showered, changed, and enjoyed some salmon, buttery pasta, and veggies for lunch. We then crossed the street in the other direction to play in Limassol’s huge Municipal Park. The kids had a great time climbing on all of the Greek Mythology themed playground equipment, including this huge Poseidon set-up.

The park also had this fun interactive game console built into the ground. It had several numbers and memory games as well as freeze dance. We all enjoyed playing with it and seeing how many levels we could beat.

We continued on to the small but cute Limassol Zoo, located inside the park. Admission for the four of us was only €12. We marveled at the fact that that price wouldn’t even get one person into the large Jerusalem or Ramat Gan zoos and would have gotten just one person in at Haifa‘s zoo.

Our favorite animals were the owls

and the otters.

It also had a small playground where the kids spent some time climbing and jumping.

After an hour at the zoo, we had seen everything and headed to Delicateso for dinner. The food was delicious and the service was good. Definitely recommended.

There were a few men’s clothing stores near the restaurant. Finn went in in search of a belt, but came out empty-handed refusing to pay €150-€300, which was even more expensive than the $80-$230 belts he saw at the Tel Aviv airport the day before. He insisted he’d rather hold up his own pants for that price. 😂

Day 3 – Marina, optical illusions, boardwalk, swimming and games

After a DIY breakfast at our hotel, we walked to Limassol’s Old Port, which kind of reminded us of Jerusalem’s First Station or Tel Aviv’s Park HaTachana, except that there were docks instead of train tracks. No longer serving its original purpose, the spot now boasts dozens of eateries, vendors, and other attractions.

It also functions as Limassol’s primary marina, where we saw lots of yachts and a few offers of boat rides, which the kids weren’t interested in, so we opted out.

After walking around and admiring the sights, we passed by a small hole-in-the-wall souvenir and clothing shop, where Finn was overjoyed to purchase a perfectly functional and handsome belt for €8.

It was just a few steps from there to the Paradox Museum, where we got to see all sorts of optical illusions and take cool pictures.

Like this one.

and this one.

After we got our fill of cool pictures, we headed back to the waterfront to sit, look at the water, and eat our packed lunch. We finished with some Häagen-Dazs for dessert. Yum.

We followed the gorgeous boardwalk back to our hotel.

We then made use of our hotel’s complimentary swimming pool. We hung out with a pair of Israeli grandparents and their granddaughter, comparing our experiences.

After showering and relaxing a bit, we headed to Moses Kosher for dinner, where we enjoyed pizza and salad.

When we returned to the hotel, we decided to try some of the games they keep in their lobby for guests. We played a few rounds of Guess Who, which we know and like from home, except that this time, all the names were in Greek.

The only game they had that wasn’t impaired by our inability to read Greek was backgammon, so we chose that next and had a great time teaching our kids the rules. Now any time they play sheshbesh again, they will remember our trip. 🙂

Day 4 – Horses, ice skating, games, and souvenirs

The kids had been asking to ride horses, so we checked Google and made some phone calls to find the closest ranch that would let our kids ride. It could be because of the short notice, or the place itself, but it was okay…. Nothing terrible, but nothing amazing. It was relaxing though, and we had a lot of nachat watching them ride.

We cabbed from there back to the Old Port to have lunch at Asado. We felt like we were home in Israel while there. Everyone spoke Hebrew and stickers honoring the memory of fallen IDF soldiers greeted us at the door.

After lunch, we jumped on the 30 bus and made our way to My Mall, the largest mall on the island, whose lower level is full of kid friendly activities. We took our kids ice skating for the first time. We appreciated that they lent our Israeli unfamiliar-with-ice kids free helmets and kneepads. We also rented a ride-on plastic seal that the kids pushed each other around the ice on. Very helpful.

After that, we all played some air-hockey, after having fallen in love with it in Eilat. That floor of the mall also had other arcade games, a bowling alley, a bounce house, and some other fun things we didn’t try. We walked around the mall, bought some souvenirs, and noted that the same mall sold both Israeli and Lebanese items and brands as Cyprus has warm ties with both countries. שיהיה בקרוב אצלנו.

After a self-catered dinner back at our hotel, we set out again for the amazing playground and some more grocery shopping before bed.

Day 5 – Archeology, more playgrounds, and goodbye, Cyprus

Our last day was a pretty relaxed day and we started it by letting our kids take the lead. We began at the beach, taking it in and watching the kids play. From there, we discovered a new smaller playground we hadn’t noticed before, so of course we had to stop and check it out. While our mini-mes played, we admired the graffiti.

We continued on to the Archaeological Museum of Lemesos, which was cute, educational, free, and, most importantly, air-conditioned. We got to learn about ancient Cyprus, which had a lot of the same conquerors as ancient Israel.

And we got to see lots and lots of old swords, pots, and headless statues.

From there, we returned to Delicateso, our favorite restaurant of the three we had visited, for a last lunch in Cyprus before heading home.

We explored the Municipal Park some more on our way back to our hotel (can’t get enough of that place).

We picked up our stuff and got a cab back to the Larnaca Airport. Our flight was scheduled for 6:10 pm. We were surprised to see so many other flights to Israel around the same time – six on this board alone!

Costs

We rented a one-bedroom suite at the Chriekla Boutique Hotel. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience. In addition to the kitchenette in our suite, the complementary pool, and the hotel’s proximity to the beach, park, and zoo, the small hotel had a homey feel. It also had a bus stop right across the street that not only had buses to other places in Limassol, it had buses to other cities too. We considered taking a day trip out of the city, but never did. Shoutout to Julia and Katerina, the best front desk ladies ever, who essentially adopted us and doted on our every need. Our kids felt so comfortable with them, they’d run ahead and walk in by themselves. We’d find them hanging out by the front desk with markers and paper, drawing pictures of our trip for their friends back home. The hotel also had a welcoming living-room-type lobby with books and board games that we spent some time in. We spent 2,000 shekels for four nights at the hotel.

Roundtrip flights from Tel Aviv to Larnaca were 2,440 shekels on El Al/Sun D’or. While we were entitled to four backpacks and four trolleys, we squished ourselves into two of each plus two car booster seats, expecting that we parents would be responsible for schlepping everyone’s stuff. If we were willing to fly less convenient hours, we could have shaved off about 200 shekels per person. And of course, had we flown a low-cost airline it would have been even less.

We spent 680 shekels on activities and 751 shekels on transportation. Most transportation costs were the cabs from and to Larnaca Airport as well as the cab to the horseback riding and back. We took the bus to the mall and back once. Aside from that, we walked everywhere we went. We had originally considered renting a car for the trip, but we were too intimidated by the idea of our first ever drive on the left side of the road being in the dark, on the highway (with no street lighting, it turns out), with our kids in the car. In retrospect, it worked out well. If and when we visit Cyprus again, we might consider renting a car, so we can explore more of the island.

We ate at a restaurant for one meal each day and spent 1,152 shekels on eating out. This included Fiona’s morning coffee runs and Häagen-Dazs at the Old Port. We found the prices at Limassol’s kosher restaurants to be similar to those in Israel. We also spent 488 shekels on groceries, which covered us for the meals we didn’t eat out as well as all of the European kosher-list nosh we bought.

Additionally, we spent 120 shekels for laundry service at the hotel (one downside of not staying in an apartment with a washing machine), 215 shekels for travelers’ health insurance, and 640 shekels on souvenirs and other purchases.

In total, we spent 8,486 shekels (not including the 400 shekels we spent for a dogsitter who pampered and spoiled our furry girl while we were away) for four people spending four nights in Cyprus. Considering we didn’t try to cut costs at all on the trip, this still went wayyyy under our 15,000 budget.

Conclusions and takeaways from the trip

Limassol is super duper child-friendly. We saw kids, babies, strollers, and playgrounds everywhere we looked. We took the liberty of not including every single playground we stopped at in this post. The city also has a whole selection of play-cafes and indoor play centers that we did not visit and a huge outdoor waterpark that opens in full for the season in June. You can read about more child-friendly activities in Limassol here.

Coming from the startup nation, the country seems to be several decades behind Israel technologically and infrastructurally. There are no trains on the island, and no lighting on the highways. Finn and I essentially live a cashless lifestyle at home, but we frequented the ATM several times on this trip, because so many places (including cabs and buses) only accepted cash. The sewer system also seemed to be more fragile than ours, as just about every toilet we sat on had a sign instructing us to throw toilet paper in the garbage.

We saw more Greek flags than Cypriot ones and couldn’t figure out why. Cyprus is an independent country, after all. Why fly another country’s flag? Instead of one flagpole with one flag, there were usually four – Limassol, Cyprus, Greece, and the EU. And the Cypriot flag was often missing or damaged. When we asked a shopkeeper at one of the souvenir stores, she told us that they speak Greek and are ethnically Greek, so they like Greece a lot. 🤷

We did not hide being Jewish or Israeli at all. Everyone was totally fine with it and we felt no antisemitism. We crossed paths with other Israelis at least once every day. We also learned that while you can take the Israeli out of Israel, you can’t take Israel out of the Israeli. At this time, we get azakot or incoming missile sirens at least once or twice a week where we live. (Thanks, Houthis.) Our kids are well-trained on what to do and how to make it to shelter on time. We had to explain to our precious children that Cyprus has no azakot, no missiles, and no bomb shelters. This took a few days to sink in – for all of us.

We had a wonderful vacation. This last-minute replacement trip ended up giving us the peace and slow-paced relaxation that we needed. We’re so glad we went.

Have you been to Cyprus? Which cities? What did you do there?

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