Limassol Carnival and Green Monday: how to plan a February trip to Cyprus
Costumed dancers on Makariou Avenue during the Limassol grand carnival parade
Carnival runs ten days and ends on Green Monday — 23 February in 2026 — and it is the one week when a €75 Limassol seafront room becomes a €120 one.
The 2026 dates, and how the ten days are structured
Carnival is pegged to Orthodox Easter, which falls on 12 April in 2026. That puts Green Monday, the start of Orthodox Lent, on 23 February 2026, and the carnival fortnight in the run-up to it. The opening act is the King Carnival cavalcade, which processes through central Limassol around ten days before, on the Thursday of Tsiknopempti — the day everyone grills meat before the fasting starts. The following weekend brings the children's parade on the Saturday, then the Grand Carnival Parade on Sunday 22 February, and everything stops dead the next morning for the public holiday.
Limassol has done this since the nineteenth century and it is the island's biggest carnival by a wide margin — Paphos and Larnaca hold smaller versions, and Lemesos schools, dance troupes and neighbourhood groups spend months on floats. It is not Rio and it is not Venice; it is a municipal street party with satirical floats, brass, a lot of confetti, and thousands of costumed locals rather than a ticketed spectacle. Plan around the two parades and the holiday Monday and you have your trip.
Watching the parades: where to stand and when to arrive
The Grand Parade fills Archbishop Makarios III Avenue, running roughly from the Limassol Old Port and Anexartisias end of town along the main commercial spine. It is free, there is no seating, and the crowd is deep three hours before the floats move. Stand near the start of the route if you want to see costumes crisp and dancers energetic; stand near the end if you prefer space and a taverna at your back. Arrive 90 minutes early for a front-row kerb, or accept a second-row view and go 30 minutes before.
Road closures start mid-morning and take out most of the central grid, including access to the seafront promenade car parks. Park east towards the Limassol Marina or the old town lanes behind Saripolou Square and walk in — the walk is ten minutes and it saves you an hour of one-way misery. The children's parade the day before is the better option for families with under-eights: same costumes, shorter route, finishes in daylight, and no drink in the crowd. Toilets are the weak point on both days; use a café and buy a coffee.
Green Monday: what shuts and what everyone actually does
Green Monday, Kathara Deftera, is a full public holiday. Banks, government offices, most museums and archaeological site ticket offices, and the great majority of shops are closed. Big supermarkets shut too, so buy your bread, tahini and wine on the Sunday. Restaurants in the tourist areas of Limassol and Paphos generally open, but many family tavernas in the villages take the day off with everyone else, and hotel restaurants shift to a Lenten menu.
What Cypriots do is picnic. The Lenten table is vegan by tradition and better than that sounds: lagana flatbread baked only that day, tahini and taramosalata, olives, pickled cauliflower and moungra, raw spring onions and radishes, artichokes, koupepia made without meat, halva. Kites go up wherever there is a breeze. The busiest picnic spots are Governor's Beach and the Kourion cliffs west of Limassol, the Akrotiri salt lake edges, the Kalavasos dam, and the Troodos forest picnic sites. If you want in, arrive by 10:30 or you will not find a table or a parking space.
Where to stay and what February costs
February is low season, which is the point of coming. A Limassol seafront four-star sits at roughly €70 to €110 B&B for most of the month; over the carnival weekend the same room runs €110 to €150, and the cheaper stock sells out first. Old town boutique rooms behind Saripolou run €80 to €120 with more character and more Friday-night noise. Book the carnival weekend by early January — this is a domestic demand spike, not an international one, so it does not show up on flight prices and catches visitors out.
Two cheaper bases work. Larnaca city hotels run €45 to €70 in February and the drive to Limassol is 45 minutes on the A5; Nicosia business hotels drop to €55 to €80 at weekends and are an hour away on the A1. Both mean driving home late on parade night, so nominate a driver or budget €80 to €100 for a taxi. What I would not do is base yourself in Ayia Napa or Protaras: most of that stock is closed in February, and the ones open are 90 minutes from the parade with nothing around them.
What February weather really gives you
Limassol in February averages daytime highs of 17 to 19°C, with nights at 8 to 10°C and the sea at its annual floor of about 17°C. Expect five to seven rain days across the month, often as short heavy bursts followed by brilliant clarity, and one or two windy spells that make the seafront promenade feel colder than the thermometer says. Pack a proper jacket, layers and shoes you can stand in for three hours, and bring an umbrella for the parade — it has been rained on plenty of times.
In exchange you get the island at its greenest. Almond blossom is out in the Lefkara and Pitsilia foothills through February, the Akamas is carpeted in wildflowers, orchids appear along the Aphrodite trail near Latchi, and the Larnaca salt lake still holds flamingos into early March. Archaeological sites run winter hours, usually 08:30 to 17:00, and you can walk Kourion or Nea Paphos at midday without melting — the single best argument for a February trip regardless of carnival.
What is closed, and where the trip goes wrong
Nothing that involves water is running. WaterWorld at Ayia Napa, Fasouri Watermania outside Limassol and the Aphrodite waterpark at Paphos are all shut until spring. Boat trips are skeletal: the Blue Lagoon boats from Latchi and the Ayia Napa harbour cruises largely wait for late March, and the ones that do sail cancel on wind. Beach kiosks and sunbed concessions are closed, lifeguards are off duty, and roughly two-thirds of Ayia Napa and Protaras hotel beds are shut for the season.
The other pitfall is assuming carnival fills a week. It does not. Build the trip around the Sunday parade and Green Monday and give the other days to the Krasochoria wine villages, a mountain day up to Platres and Omodos, Kourion and the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates, and Lefkara for lace and lunch. The Paphos carnival is smaller and cheaper to attend, and if your dates land there rather than in Limassol it is a perfectly good consolation — but if you can choose, choose Limassol.
A four-night plan that works
Fly into Larnaca on the Friday, hire a car at the airport, and drive the 45 minutes to Limassol. Saturday: Kourion in the morning, the children's parade in the afternoon, dinner in the old town around Saripolou. Sunday: the Grand Parade from noon, parked at the Marina end, then an early night. Monday: a Green Monday picnic — buy lagana and tahini on Sunday — at the Kourion cliffs or Governor's Beach, kite optional. Tuesday: the Krasochoria, with a tasting at a Kilani or Agios Amvrosios winery, before an evening flight.
Total accommodation for four nights in that window, in a mid-range seafront hotel, lands around €380 to €500 for two, plus roughly €120 to €160 for a small hire car with airport pick-up. Carnival itself costs nothing. That is a February week in which you spend less than a July weekend and see the version of Limassol the resorts never show you — which is why locals rate this fortnight above August.
Before you book
The questions people ask about Limassol, answered with this month’s numbers.
Monday 23 February 2026, tied to Orthodox Easter on 12 April. The Limassol grand carnival parade is the day before, Sunday 22 February, and the children's parade the Saturday. Carnival opens with the King Carnival cavalcade around Tsiknopempti, roughly ten days earlier.
No. Both the children's and the grand parade are free street events on Archbishop Makarios III Avenue, with no seating. Arrive about 90 minutes early for a kerbside spot, park towards the Limassol Marina or behind Saripolou Square, and expect central road closures from mid-morning.
It is a full public holiday: banks, most museums, supermarkets and shops close. Tourist-area restaurants in Limassol and Paphos generally open with Lenten menus, but many village tavernas shut. Buy bread, tahini and wine on the Sunday if you plan to picnic.
It is cheap and green rather than bad. Highs of 17 to 19°C, sea at 17°C, five to seven rain days, and low-season rates of €70 to €110 for a Limassol seafront four-star. Waterparks, most boat trips and roughly two-thirds of east-coast hotels are closed.
