Cyprus and Mount Olympus - Easily confused with - Cypress Mountain and the Olympics

Last Resort No.4 - Cyprus
It’s a Last Resort because you can no longer find it on the Internet.

When you think of holidays in Cyprus it usually conjures up visions of fat English holidaymakers drinking too much and toasting themselves crimson on the beaches of Ayia Napa, but Cyprus does have a winter holiday option.

Unfortunately the Vancouver Olympics had an unexpected side-effect of making web searching a lot harder for the snowboarders of the tiny Mediterranean countrylet. Numerous spelling mistakes from the Olympic coverage have overwhelmed the small amount of information available on snowboarding on the island. The mountains of Cyprus don’t get much snow but then neither did Cypress Mountain during the Olympics, so maybe they’re worth a look? Here’s everything you need to know about snowboarding in Cyprus

Beware of Turks baring gifts.

Cyprus is a small island in the Mediterranean which is one of only two countries in the world run by an elected communist party. For many years it was part of the British Empire until it became an independent state in 1960. With a heady mix of ethnic Greeks and Turks it wasn’t long before things got a bit messy. Bouts of ethnic violence and Greek-led coup d'état led to the Turks unsuccessfully attempting to invade in 1964 and then successfully invading part of the island in 1974. After falling for the giant wooden horse trick in a previous war the Turks probably thought about using the same method on the Greeks but in the end they decided to go for the slightly more obvious 30,000 troops and a whole lot of guns, ships, planes and tanks.

After all no one would fall for the Trojan Horse trick again would they?

Parts of Cyprus don’t exist

Cyprus (the 81^st largest island in the world) is now a dormant war zone and its split onto four parts. The Republic of Cyprus, the internationally recognized government, occupies the southern two-thirds of the island (59.74%). The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus occupies the northern third (34.85%) of the island and is not recognized by any country other than Turkey. The United Nations-control the buffer zone called the ‘Green Line’ that separates the two and covers 2.67% of the island. And finally the British Empire still owns 2.74% of the island where they have two military bases.

Positive side effects of ethnic wars - neatness.

Cyprus contains an eleventh of the world’s Mount Olympus’s.

The highest mountain in Cyprus and the focus of the small amount of snow the island receives is Mt Olympus (1,952m) which is the centre of the Troodos Mountains. It’s not the famous Mt Olympus though, it’s just one of 11 Mount Olympus’s scattered around the globe, and that doesn’t include the one on the moon (which is probably the worst one for snowboarding).

That's no moon!

They have a history of snowsports

It is possible to ski and snowboard in Cyprus and there has been a winter sports scene there since the first ski club was established in 1947. There’s actually a recognized FIS ski race that takes place every year nattily named the ‘Zeus Slalom Homologated Pits’ and they even managed to get a couple of skiers to the Vancouver Olympics, but sadly no snowboarders yet.

Cyprus’s most famous sportsperson is still the former world number 8 tennis player and champion gurner Marcos Baghdatis..

They have the best resort maps in the world…

Shortly after completing the trail map Rolandos sliced his ear off and gave it to a prostitute.

And here's how you get there. Good luck.

What’s the snowboarding like?

Indiana Jones easily outpaced the giant snowball

After trawling the internet and successfully navigating past the Vancouver Olympics misspellings I’ve found a couple of videos to take a look at. Here’s a couple of locals giving snowboarding a try:

And look they have a dinky kicker

It all looks fairy gentle with a lot of trees and if you prefer snowboarding in dormant war zones rather than active ones then this is the place to be. Cyprus is one of the few places in the world where on the same morning you can ski on the snow clad sides of Mount Olympus, and in less than an hour, swim or sunbathe at the coast and it does have the best jib opportunities in the world...