Cars slow down as they near a roundabout so that they can enter slowly when it is safe to do so (that is, when there aren’t other cars coming towards them). However, the cars don’t stop before entering a roundabout, as they would have to do at an intersection with a red traffic light or a stop sign. Check out the overhead photo at the right to experience a roundabout for yourself! Have you ever been on a roundabout in real life before? Roundabouts are much more common in Cyprus than they are in parts of the U.S. I’ve lived in and visited. My hometown has a few roundabouts, but nowhere near as many as they have here in Cyprus. For instance, during the course of my seven-minute commute to work every day, I pass through three roundabouts. More impressive still, during the fifteen-minute drive to the local mall, I pass through five roundabouts!
In addition to cars, motorcycles, scooters, taxis, and buses also frequent Cyprus’s roads. Even so, public transportation is not very well developed in Cyprus, and even the locals complain about the difficulty of getting around if one doesn’t have a car. Can you imagine if you did not have access to subways and trains? Or if many buses connecting downtown areas and residential housing areas stopped running as early as 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM? That’s what it would be like if you moved to Cyprus!
Rather than subways or trains, highways alone connect Cyprus’s major cities, and it takes just one hour and forty minutes to drive from the capital city in the eastern central part of Cyprus to the beachside town of Paphos on the western coast.
