Tips for travelers

Some tips on ferries, border crossings and passport stamping.

When passing through the Turkish crossing ask for a piece of paper to be stamped rather than your passport. The border guards are very familiar with this practice. Allegedly, the Greek side won’t allow you to pass if your passport has a TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) stamp. In our own experience, the Greek border guards barely looked at our passports (once they knew we were Australian), but we got a slip of paper stamped just to be safe.

There are five points at which you can cross the green line (the name given the Turkish-Greek Cypriot border, owing to the colour pen used by the British general drawing up the partition on his map). We used three (marked *) without any issues or delays.

• Ledra palace*: bicycles and pedestrians

• Zohdia (Güzelyurt)*: also known as Astromeritis, Morpho, Morfu, Güzelyurt, Omorfo, or Morfou

• Agios Dometios* (Nicosia): within the old city

• Black Knight (British Eastern Sovereign Base Area): Or also known as the Azios Nikolaos, Strovilia, or Akyar

• Pergamos: also known as, Beyarmudu, or Dhekelia

Ferry Crossings:

At the time of our travel you could access Girne (in Northern Cyprus) via Tasucu (Turkey). You can also get a ferry to famagusta (Cyprus) from Mersin (Turkey)

From Mersin:

Tix 80TL each way. Overnight ferry 2 or 3 times a week (we didn’t catch this one)

From Tasucu:

Tix 68TL return (special deal at the time of writing – no additional charge for bikes). Overnight ferry takes cars and trucks. Length of trip is unpredictable. A frequent passenger said is launch is often delayed for 4-5 hours. Ours was delayed 1 hour. Every day.

Also a hydrofoil which takes 3 hours or so and leaves everyday.

You allegedly cannot enter from Turkey and then leave from the Greek side. Issues with recognizing passport stamping and borders, etc. We didn’t try. But you should enquire in advance if you plan to try this.