These are the first swimming pools in Limassol!

Limassol may have always been a seaside town, but until the mid-20^th century, its tourism industry was practically nonexistent, which meant that swimming pools were far from a familiar concept. The first pools appeared in the 1960s, when nobody could even imagine the hundreds of pools, both public and private, Limassol would have one day.

The hotels in the city today (mostly the ones by the beach) may have some of the most impressive pools on the island, but the first pools were ones that were constructed in mountain hotels, surrounded by the pine trees of the Troodos forest. Forest Park in Platres and Berengaria in Prodromos, which hosted high profile guests of the international elite, built their own pools in 1963 and 1967 respectively, more than 30 years after the hotels themselves were built.

It took even more time for the pools to appear within the city. Before it became a trend for hotels to have their own pools, the Island Club of NAAFI (The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes), was a recreation venue with its own pool, created by the Sovereign of the British Army in Cyprus. The families of British officers used to reside north of Makarios Avenue (around Petros Tsiros street), where the Island Club was located, making it a particularly popular summer destination during the late 1960s.

The pool at the Island Club of NAAFI, which may not exist anymore, though the area north of Makarios Avenue is still known by the name NAAFI.

The first beach hotels were built around the beginning of the 1970s and a pool was by then a must-have facility. Amathus Beach Hotel is a typical example, as it featured its own very large pool since the beginning of its operations, while the same applied for all the beach hotels from that era onwards. In the beginning of 1974, Curium Palace hotel, one of the first city hotels in Limassol, constructed its own pool, too.