Cyprus Wine Festival opens on Thursday

The annual Wine Festival in Limassol opens on Thursday evening, celebrating its 50th anniversary and promising an upgraded cultural programme and many innovations.

The Festival will be opened by Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Praxoula Antoniadou. Greek singer Costas Makedonas, as well as the Cypriot group Giorgallettos, will be singing songs written especially for the anniversary.

To mark the opening of the festival, special anniversary stamps will be issued, as well as various publications, and an effort will be made to fabricate the biggest wineglass in the world for a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Furthermore, a bar will be offering cocktails made with Cypriot wine products and the local spirit ''Zivania'', and a pilot programme of civil marriages will be inaugurated, based on Cypriot traditions.

The Wine Festival will last until September 18 and is hosted at the Limassol Municipal Park, as every year, with the participation of the four wineries of Limassol.

A total of 70 stalls will be open and the number of visitors is expected to exceed 100,000.

The Cyprus Tourism Organisation has set up a free bus service, linking all towns and two mountain resorts to the Festival.

Throughout the years, the Limassol Wine Festival has become a traditional feast, very popular among the local population as well as tourists.