Chanchi

Hi All

We are thinking of moving to Cyprus next year and would like to make friends and get some good advice before moving. We are Jane & Jack and 3yr old Tom, we are currently living in Thessaloniki (Greece) but I am not a lover of cold winters so we are thinking of Cyprus.

We would love to hear about the do's and dont's of Cyprus, ie; where to live, whats good and whats not so good.

With regards to work I have a job that enables us to move around so won't be looking for work. Our son has a good ear for Greek as he has been going to a Greek nursery school but will need to start asap to pick up the language, we speak 'get by' Greek, I have heard the language in Cyprus is a bit different than mainland and islands, someone said it was similar to Scottish-English any advice on that would be good.

So please message me your do's and don'ts and likes and dislikes would be really grateful.

I will most likely be back several times to ask different stuff like the dreaded çar import, is it worth it?
Good schools etc and is there a good expat community? even though we live in a small Greek village where noone speaks English we have enjoyed the expat company here in Thessaloniki.

Hope to hear from you soon, many thanks

Honest_H

Hi there,

One question? How cold does it get in the winter? It gets cold here too, and with no insulation in houses, its really very cold at night time.

The language isn't much different, its a bit like talking to people from a different part of England. Local slang is used. eg, ok is Endaxi in Greek, in Cyprus its just Daxi or even Dax.

There's a big expat community in various place in Cyprus. So much so that in some local state schools, there are a lot of British kids in attendance. Local schools tend to differ in their standards. A lot of the ex pat community opt for private English schools.

There's one do/don't that springs to mind.

Do rent, don't buy.

Hope I've helped.

Chanchi

Hi

Thanks for your reply, it gets freezing here in Thessaloniki, it was -5 and we had snow in Feb this year, I can deal with chilly evenings but when the weather is the same as the UK then I don't cope very well

With regards to buying, we are not considering buying until we have stayed long enough ( few years) to know it will be permenant. Would like to know if you can haggle rental prices like we do here, ie offer up 6 months in advance and get cheaper rental rate? (hope so)

any info greatly appreciated

Honest_H

You should definitely haggle!! There are hundreds of houses empty, so you could get yourself a real bargain. Even if you see a house with a for sale sign on it, try and contact the owner to see if they would be willing to rent it. Better having someone in the house and paying rent, than having an empty house.

Chanchi

Another few Q's

Do you have gas to cook with, is it piped or bottled?

Can you put the paper down the toilet or do you have cess pools?

Can you drink your tap water?

Do you need the central heating on in winter or do most people use open fires?

Many thanks

Honest_H

If you cook on gas it will be bottled. Most people use electric for cooking.

Very very few people are able to flush toilet roll down the loo (I'm fortunate! we had a British project manager for our development who insisted on proper pipes). Very few have mains plumbing, so mainly cess pools.

You can drink the tap water, but very few do. With deselination plants providing a lot of the water now, it doesn't taste to good! We have a water cooler and fill our 19 gallon bottle up from one of the many water dispensers for about 1 euro.

Most houses don't have central heating or open fires!!! Major flaw in my opinion. We have to rely on using our AC units for heat. Of course, because the houses are insulated, as soon as you turn it off, its freezing again. Our solution has been to buy an electric blanket and go to bed early!!

Mycroft

We have a log burning stove, central heating and insulation in the roof,as they do in UK. ( we do get snow!) We have a gas hob, and the central heating is also gas, which means we have two very large gas tanks outside, these are filled up regularly by the gas company ( they come round automatically to do this), our tap water comes from mountain springs and is wonderful. The loo paper goes down the loo, no problem, as I understand it since the EU building regs were implemented all sewer pipes had to be similar to the rest as Europe, which ours are. There are a lot of houses in remote places all over the world who have cess pits and they still put paper down the loo. It is apparently a Cypriot habit to put loo paper in a bin, no matter what.