Depends what you mean by Famagusta.

Famagusta has never been closed to the public, whereas Varosha still is (I'm sure).

Return to Varosha forum.

Mark

For Farmagusta, there is a boat trip which takes you as far as the UN peace keeping border but in all honesty your still pretty far away to see much... We hired a car one time and visited some of the "view" points which are located in different places around the island which are better for seeing the "ghost town"...

I've not done the Trodos Mountain trip, but we did do the 3 night Egypt trip which was really good...

You can drive to the beach in Famagusta now, there is about a 100 yard stretch that you can go on and is not mined.

You have to pay the Turkish border guards £10 for a visa I believe.

Taxis also do trips there but if you have a hire car its cheaper to do it yourself.

You have to pay the Turkish border guards £10 for a visa

Do you get anything tangible for your tenner?
Or are the guards just boosting their salary?

Taxis also do trips there but if you have a hire car its cheaper to do it yourself

Check that it is OK with your hire company before you take a zed (south Cyprus hire) car over to the north. You will have to pay for insurance at the border checkpoint.

Do the jeep safari. Fascinating half-day trip. I went on the beach and went right up to the barbed wire fence, you get to see the abandoned hotels right up close. There are armed guards in watch towers. That stretch of beach is wonderful for swimming. There is a (open) hotel at the end of the beach.

The £10 as I believe, is for the car insurance.
You don't pay for the visa.

Ady

The £10 fee is for car insurance, you do not have to pay for a visa. In my experience the Turkish border guards are far less likely to rip you off than the Greek border guards!

At Ayios Nicolaos where I went through, there were no Greek guards. As it is a Sovereign Base Area they were British.

We went on the organised tour last year. Took us to the ruins of Salamis, the port of Famagusta and then onto the beach itself as previously mentioned. very very eerie though .. i took a few photos of it which can be seen in the photo galleries

Well worth the visit though .. really interesting.

KKN2003 - who did you book the trip with? I went a few years ago to the place where you can go up the view tower and look across no mans land but would be interested in the ruins etc

Thanks
Max

we went with our tour operator Thomsons ?? i think it was £42 CYP each but we were out from 10am til 4pm and we got lunch too. If you can get there without them then i would defo recommend it ... it was really good.

Thanks for that, we are going with Thomsons as well so I'll look out for their trip and can always have a look in the resort and compare them.

Well they mention it at the welcome meeting in the wee handout they give you .. but as you said there is plenty of places in the Protaras Main Strip offering tours of it ... i dont know if i would do that though. At least with thomsons its an organised trip and they organise your visa and all that at the checkpoints.

You probs know this ... but the Northern part is under Turkish Law so watch what you wear ?? It was boiling the day we went and i had a t-shirt on that i took off ... but the bus driver said that i had to put it back on again so not to be disrespectful to them ?? i didnt know any difference to be honest but there you go ... make sure you keep your t-shirt on !!! The women had to cover up as well ....

Another good day out that we went on (as a matter of interest to you) was to Nicosia ? Lots of History there too .. we went up to the Green Line and looked into the No Go Zone ... looks like a timewarp .. old signs still hanging there from the 70's etc etc ... bullet holes all over the place ?? really interesting stuff. Then theres lots of UK shops like Debenhams and M&S as well that you can go to ??

Thomsons also took us there ??

Cheers, we'll probably book with Thomsons, less hassle.

Thanks for that, last year we went to Nicossia and went over the boarder there and also to Egypt where we had to cover up - in lovely green things that made us look like umpa lumpas

As I'm female I'll definately be keeping my top on

We did the same trip by the sounds of it, although it was booked with a travel agent along the strip. There were no worries doing it this way, all very organised, the driver was a guy who had lived in the Northern part before the invasion so made it very interesting. He also dealt with everything at the border, so it was all taken care of. Did the beach at Famagusta, along the town walls, up to Salamis for the ruins and then into Famagusta town.

We were picked up at about 7am I think and although an early start, it was nice to be back early afternoon and still have half a day free.

Can't remember what we paid, but it was certainly less than CY£42 (CY£18 comes to mind - maybe the CY£42 included Kyrenia as well?) and well worth the money.

Kezza

yes that sounds the eact same as ours ?? maybe it was £42 in total cos we took our wee girl as well ?? cant see it being over £100CYP to go there to be honest !!

The lady that took us on the bus .. Katherina i think her name was, was really patriotic about the whole events as well .. i think she sounded a bit bitter at times and quite rightly so when you see what went on .. what is there now ?? she said that it was very scary having to leave and still hopes to go back one day to live there ... she was born and raised in famagusta. Very sad story.

We went on a trip to famagust, where we could walk around the town and we also got took to the beach which is closed off with barbed wire. we were warned not to take any photos or the turkish guards could take our camera or arrest us. it is an eerie sight to see shattered hotels and rotting sunbeds. not nice at all. we went to kyrenia on the turkish side which was lovely, but the turkish side is very tatty and they are not so friendly as the cypriots. salamis was very nice though and worth a visit. remember to take your passport when you go to the other side

You are always warned not to take pictures on that beach
Mine are here
Link to pictures

Pubdog .. your pictures are really good !! they really tell the story of what it really is like over there ... i took a lot too but as i had to hide my camera under my t-shirt ive a few of that rather than the buildings/beach ??

The beaches next to the buildings are packed too .. is it just me or what but why on earth would you want to sunbathe with all those wrecked buildings standing there ?? its like holidaying in Baghdad withouth the bombs going off?? not my idea of a holiday anyways !!!

It really is a shame though when you look at them all along the beach standing there idle ... theres thousands of them as well !!!!