Artemis Trail

No bus comes to the trailhead. The nearest stop is Troodos Camping Site, on the road that climbs in from Kakopetria, and this page measures the walk from there: 3.17 km, about 40 minutes, and it climbs the whole way, because the stop sits at 1,669 m and the trail starts at 1,829 m — roughly 160 m of the day happens before you reach the forest. Coming in on a weekday, you want the 87 from Kakopetria, which stops at the camping site at 09:42, 12:47 and 15:22; at the weekend it is the 408 from Nicosia (Makario Stadium), arriving at 09:20, then 12:16 on Saturday or 12:21 on Sunday, and again at 15:21 or 15:17. From Limassol there is one bus each way: the 64 arrives at Troodos Square at 10:40 and leaves it at 15:30, every day — and the Square is a different stop, further from the trail than the camping site. Going home, the same buses leave from the far side of the road: the 87 back to Kakopetria at 09:51, 12:51 and 15:51 on weekdays, the 408 back to Nicosia at 10:01, 13:01 and 16:01 at the weekend, and the 62K only on Tuesday and Friday, in at 08:37 and out at 11:12. The loop comes back to the point where it started, so the walk out is the same 3.17 km, mostly downhill, at the end of a 7.21 km day — and it has to be finished before the last bus, gone at 15:51 on weekdays and 16:01 at the weekend. In practice that means leaving the trail by about 15:00.

Altitude does the work here. The loop never leaves the band between 1,816 m and 1,847 m — the highest ground I have walked on this site — and all fifty of the canopy samples along it fall inside mapped woodland, so the sun reaches you filtered from the first step to the last. That is why Artemis is the one hike here where midsummer is not a mistake: while the coast bakes, the pines hold the heat off the path and the air stays thin and cool. My own walk was June 2024, and cool shade at that height was the whole reason for climbing up here. What decides your month instead is the timetable and the winter. The profile is gentle — of 264 recorded samples, 146 flat, 101 easy, 12 moderate and only 5 steep, none steeper than fifteen per cent — so the ground itself asks for nothing. The buses do: the last useful ride out goes at 15:51 on a weekday and 16:01 at the weekend, and ahead of it sits a 3.17 km walk that climbs the whole way. In December and January that deadline arrives in the dark, frost stays in the shaded corners, and snow reaches this height often enough to break a plan — the ski lifts near the summit exist for a reason, and the cafe on the loop is a winter place, open when the lowland walkers have gone. So: May and June for cool air and long light, September to November for the same forest empty. April works once the snow has left. Deep winter I would leave to the skiers. And whatever month you come, carry water and food with you, because the one refill on the hill may be shut.