Feature - Limassol Wine Festival 2009

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Feature - Limassol Wine Festival

   
The 2009 Limassol (Lemesos) Wine Festival came to a close on Sunday night after opening its gates on the 28th August.

 
Guide2Cyprus decided to make a visit to the festival on Friday to find out for ourselves what the Limassol wine festival was all about and sample some local Cyprus wines.
 

Ayia Napa CTO (Cyprus Tourist Organisation) provided a free coach from the Ayia Napa Monastery which departed at 6pm. We were very surprised by the amount of people that had booked the transport as the coach was full. The journey down to Limassol was very pleasant on the air conditioned coach and the CTO guide was extremely helpful.

 
Upon arrival at the wine festival, it was quite a seamless entry into the festival as there were a handful of ticket offices. The ticket into the festival cost €5 which also included a free bottle of wine. The ticket could be redeemed for a bottle of wine within the festival from one of the major Cyprus wine distributors (Keo, Loel, Etko, Sodar and Fikardos).

 
The festival was relatively quiet when we arrived but an hour later it had started to fill up. Wine tasting from the wine companies took place from 8pm until 10pm. To participate in the wine tasting, we needed to purchase a glass or bottle which cost €1 or €2 for a stemmed glass. The glasses could be refilled however the plastic bottle could only be filled once due to hygiene.

 
The Limassol Municipality had stalls throughout the grounds offering a choice of dry white wine and dry and sweet red wine for free until the festival closed.

 
We were drawn to the many food stalls serving local cuisine and some serving international food. It was difficult to decide what to eat as they all smelt so delicious. Seating areas were scattered around so it was a case of finding some nice food, a glass of wine and relaxing at one of the tables whilst taking in the bustling atmosphere and listening to the traditional singing.

 
After eating, we walked around and found some stalls selling beautiful, locally manufactured pottery at very reasonable prices as well as a few merchandise stalls.
 

Unfortunately, it was soon time to go and find our coach to get us back to Ayia Napa. The many coaches lined the seafront road and we found ours without any problems. At 11pm we started our journey back to the east coast of the island with most people sleeping on the coach.
 

Overall the Limassol Wine Festival appeared to be well organised and was definitely worth the visit. Well done to Limassol Municipality and the Cyprus Tourism Organisation for all their hard work and efforts in putting on a very well organised event.
 
We will make sure that we book for next year's festival. Yia mas (cheers)!
 
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