Girne - Day 22 - Thursday 18th September 2025 - Balkan-Georgia Trip - Day 22/34 - City 16/22 - country 10/11
- eusts6
- Nov 10, 2025
- 2 min read
Today, the mission was to go to Girne, a town on the north coast of Cyprus. We made our way to the bus station, bought tickets, and waited for the bus. When it arrived, the small bus, not quite a minibus, looked like it had seen better days. Even the curtains inside were all ripped. It brought back memories of African road trips in the '90s. Similar to my road trips back then, we were the only non-locals on the bus, which hummed away with the threadbare curtains flapping in the air currents.
Once we left Nicosia, or as they called it, Lefkoşa, we left the traffic jams behind and were able to build up some speed. As the bus got closer and closer to the mountain ridge, the poor bus started struggling going upwards. At one stage, we were giving full gas and only moving at 15-20 km/h. Finally, we crossed over and zigzagged our way down towards the Mediterranean Sea, which was glistening in the distance.
We had a short walk and noticed a bar called "The George," so we noted it down and moved towards the castle. On entering, we struck up a conversation with a friendly local guide called Murat.
For one euro, we spent ages in the castle and the grounds. It had lots of exhibits, including an old shipwreck. Within the castle grounds, there was a café, so we stayed there, cooling off and sipping coffees.
On exiting, we found a Georgian restaurant that was run by a very friendly Ukrainian lady and her Georgian husband. I had two lovely glasses of Saperavi, and Stanislav had a beer.
For food, I had the aubergine dish, which is usually served as a starter. Stanislav ordered a bright red cabbage salad.
We had a nice time chatting to the owners before having a final beer at "The George" where I ordered "Belfast Beer" before walking back to catch the bus. On the way, I actually bought a nice bright orange shirt for 300 TL. This bus was in a much better state than the first one; the inside of the bus was full of warning signs written in Japanese.
On the drive back, we could clearly see Lefkoşa Λευκωσία, two names, one heart; the division was not visible from here.
In a word #Mediterranean
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