The Pierides Museum, 6,000 years of Cyprus in an 1825 house

The Pierides Museum is the one I’d recommend to anyone with time for just one museum in Larnaca. It’s small, right in the centre, and in a handful of rooms it tells thousands of years of the island’s history, inside a house that’s worth the visit on its own.

A family collection

The Larnaca Tourism Board presents it as the oldest private museum in Cyprus. Today it belongs to the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, but the collection was assembled by the Pierides family, and the museum fills their home, a colonial-style building of 1825 on Zinonos Kitieos Street. The main photo shows the front, with its long iron balcony and shutters.

What’s inside

The collection begins around 4000 BC and ends in the 15th century and, according to the board, are an important testimony to a civilisation that flourished on the island for centuries, charting its economic, social and cultural development. The prized pieces are the Early Bronze Age red polished ware, the Roman glass and the medieval ceramic dishes. In the courtyard a display case holds modern Greek and Cypriot sculpture.

The museum also has a tactile station so that people with sensory disabilities can explore the island’s history through other senses, and the entrance is wheelchair accessible. There’s also an online tour, with extra material, thanks to the city’s virtual museums scheme.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Larnaca on Expedia and filter by area before price.

Admission

Hours are 9:00 to 16:00 from Monday to Thursday and 9:00 to 13:00 on Friday and Saturday, with Sundays and public holidays closed. Entry costs €3 for adults, €1 for students and €2 per person for groups of ten or more, who must book in advance. The board warns that hours can change without notice.

More museums in the centre

If you want more, the centre has other small, free museums. The Kyriazis Medical Museum, in a 1927 mansion on Karaoli and Demetriou Street, tells the story of medicine in Cyprus with instruments, an old pharmacy and an X-ray machine, but it only opens on Wednesdays and Saturdays, 9:00 to 12:00. On Europe Square, at the start of Finikoudes, the Historic Archives Museum covers Larnaca life from Zeno to Kataklysmos, with photos, maps, engravings and costumes donated by residents.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Pierides Museum and pick one that fits your day.

Combining it

In a straight line, the museum is about 300 m from the Finikoudes promenade and about 600 m from the church of St Lazarus. About 500 m away is the free Larnaca Archaeological Museum, and 1 km off are the ruins of Kition. The free Wednesday guided walk also stops here. I’d allow about an hour for the visit. For more museums, I compare them in museums in Cyprus.

Where the bus does not go, a car does: compare car hire in Larnaca before you arrive rather than at the desk.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Larnaca on Booking.com and filter by area before price.