The Vans Greece team go exploring the streets of Cyprus in “35°10 N 33°22 E”, hitting what looks to be a serious glut of sun dappled plazas which, dealing with a London January as I am, nearly bought tears of righteous jealousy to my wind scoured eyeballs. The trip sees them hitting three cities in the South of the island as well as the capital Nicosia (or Lefkosia), clocking plenty of footage in each urban sprawl they visit and coming back with just under nine minutes of technical street ripping. Super 8mm interludes imbue the whole edit with a sense of the country itself, from beach side cruising to old dudes sipping Cypriot beer outside cafes (if there’s a sight more evocative of the Mediterranean than this, I haven’t seen it).

Flights out to Cyprus clock in at no more than five hours from London and won’t normally put you too much out of pocket outside of tourist season, so perhaps it’s time to rethink your yearly Barcelona dose of skate tourism and head to a lesser skated destination? At the very least, you won’t get dysentery after buying a beer chilled to perfection in a Catalan sewage drain by a local chancer, or wake up from a night’s partying with no wallet or phone and a vague memory of some lads jostling around you shouting ‘football’. Well, maybe you will, but it definitely seems to happen more in Europe’s official skateboarding capital than other locations…

“Vans Greek skate team traveled to the island of Cyprus in a six-day mission. Giorgio Zavos, Manos Kyriakoussis, Dionysis Skamnakis, Nestoras Haritonidis and Thodoris Mahairas were found with the local Vans Greece team rider Tony Tzoshefides and went of to Larnaca, Lefkosia, Lemesos, Paphos. This island is probably one of the best skate destinations in Europe.

Filmed and Edited: Kostas Mandilas.

Super 8 Film Footage: Kostas Mandilas.”