7 nights half board at Amavi Made for Two Hotel and 3 green fees per person (GC Elea, Secret Valley and Minthis)

Cyprus is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean. The third largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean, it lies south of Turkey. west of Syria and Lebanon; north of Egypt, Israel and southeast of Greece. The earliest known human activity on the island dates back to the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world. Cyprus was settled in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves. As a strategic location in the Middle East, it was later occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians, of which the island was occupied by Alexander the Great in 333 BC. The later rule of Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empires, the Arab Caliphates for a short time, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians were followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914). Cyprus was placed under British administration in 1878 on the basis of the Cyprus Convention and officially annexed by the United Kingdom in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and the creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders and Turkey in the 1950s. For a time, Turkish leaders favoured the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey, as Cyprus was seen by them as an “extension of Anatolia”. While since the 19th century, the majority of the Greek Cypriot population and its Orthodox Church sought unification with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s. After nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. The 1963-1964 crisis brought further intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, displacing more than 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into enclaves and ending Turkish Cypriot representation in the US Republic. On 15 July 1974, Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta staged a coup d’état to attempt the incorporation of Cyprus into Greece. This action triggered the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July, which led to the conquest of what is now the territory of Northern Cyprus the following month after the collapse of a ceasefire and the expulsion of over 150,000 Greek Cypriots and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots. A separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north was established by unilateral declaration in 1983. The move was widely condemned by the international community and only Turkey recognised the new state. These events and the resulting political situation are the subject of ongoing disputes. The Republic of Cyprus has de jure sovereignty over the entire island, including its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, with the exception of the sovereign base areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which remain under British control under the London and Zurich Agreements. However, the Republic of Cyprus is de facto divided into two main parts: the area under the effective control of the Republic in the south and west, covering about 59% of the island’s area, and the north, administered by the self-governing declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, covering about 36% of the island’s area. Another almost 4% of the island’s area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the northern part of the island to be Republic of Cyprus territory occupied by Turkish forces. [H] The occupation is considered illegal under international law and constitutes an illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean. With an advanced economy with high income and a very high human development index, the Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the Commonwealth since 1961 and a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement until its accession to the European Union on 1 May 2004 On 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the Eurozone.