Cyprus - October 2019

A new (retired) chapter of life begins with this holiday.

Wednesday 2nd October, we leave a very chilly Birmingham 6 degrees and land in Cyprus in the high 20’s.

We are offered a welcome drink on arrival at Hotel Annabelle and admired the great view from our room, watched the sunset over the castle before heading along the promenade for dinner.

Thursday 3rd October, we explore Kato Pafos on foot via a multi-cache of course! There are many

ancient ruins, Greek, Roman, Venetian and Medieval much of it is still being discovered.

A cold beer by the pool is a great way to cool off in the afternoon and the hotel gardens are beautiful and in a prime position along the bay.

The quality of the food in restaurants has varied but the portions are very generous. We were lucky to get a table at Argo (as recommended by Lonely Planet) and were hoping to try the Mezo. “Are you hungry?” asked the owner, this would take two hours and the food would just keep coming so we opted for the set menu instead and weren’t disappointed, Colin had chicken souvla – kebabs and I had beef stifado with wine for 40 euros.

Friday 4th October, it’s time to explore the Akamas Peninsula, our hire car a Kia Picanto is a little under powered which was just as well on the narrow, steep and extremely twisty route the Sat nav took us, I had sweaty palms and felt very travel sick.

We set of for a 7.5 km walk called the Aphrodites trail, 1^st passing a dingy grotto that bus loads of people come to visit, a shady pool allegedly where the goddess of Love used to bathe. We quickly passed this and stopped for a geocache a little further on, this involved searching under a bush frequented by goats, so Col obliged here. Then followed a fairly arduous climb over rocky ground to the ruins of a Church where Col realized he had lost his camera (the one we had to replace last October after cracking the lens of the previous one in Canada). We had no option but to retrace our steps and didn’t hold out too much hope of finding it. Our best option is that it would be under the goat bush and fortunately there it was, but it did mean we had curtailed our walk, being almost back at the start.

There was another challenge nearby, a geocache with posted coordinates in the sea with a terrain rating of 4.5 as it involved a swim out to an island and then a climb up the rocks. Thwarted with our original plan Col was well up for this so armed with a pencil and hotel slippers stashed in his trunks, a face mask and snorkel he claimed the cache!

You can just make out Col at the top of the island!

Our return road trip was considerably less stressful with a great A road straight back to Pafos.

Saturday 5th October, we are off exploring again to the Avakas Gorge which reminded us of our visit to the Samaria Gorge in Crete 35 years ago. In places the rock walls are 50 meters high and only a few meters wide with a boulder trapped high above our heads. Not much of a fly and flop holiday for us.

Sunday 6th October, we headed for the Troudos Mountains and the highest point on Cyprus, Mount Olympus, which in winter is host to the Ski centre of Cyprus, although there was no snow today the weather was a very chilly, cloudy and windy 14 degrees which meant we were wearing coats and jumpers!

Yet we descended a few hundred meters down the valley and had the most beautiful walk to Caledonia Falls. We could have been in England on a warm summers day, tumbling waterfalls, deciduous trees and ferns. The only problem was the bus loads of tourists dropped off at the top of the trail and walking downhill (I really should become more tolerant after all we are visitors too).

Monday 7th October, we head back to the Akamas peninsula as we have unfinished business on the Aphrodite Trail. There is a fresh cooling breeze which means I need to hold onto my hat, or at times carry it as we climbed 360 meters to what seemed like the top of world, fantastic views of the whole peninsula...

...and then back down to a small cove near The Blue Lagoon for some snorkeling.

Tuesday 8th October, this week is going so fast! We spot a geocaching series in Pykni Forest also known as Paphos Forest, an area of Mediterranean Pine, this was a place we wouldn’t have visited without the geocaches and it was a lovely place with a huge picnic area and great views although most of the trail was along wide fire breaks rather than in the shade of the trees. The fire risk here must be very significant, there was evidence of a fire from last September and indeed the fire truck was here today.

Nearby is a viewpoint of the coast below and the wreck of Edro III a ship that floundered during a December storm in 2011.

It is beached on rocks very close to the shore, so we drove down to take a closer look and at the amazing sea caves nearby.

On our way back to Pafos we called at Coral Bay, hoping for an ice cream but we didn’t linger, a busy sandy beach, loud music and a scruffy beach bar made us realize how lucky we were in our location.

We had booked a table back at Argo tonight for the special kleftiko which is a huge chunk of lamb baked all day in the clay oven with divine roast potatoes, we certainly didn’t leave hungry.

Wednesday 9th October, all good things must come to an end, we took another stroll around Kato Pafos and were amazed at what else there was to see, St Pauls Pillar, pebble mosaics, Catacombs and a Roman Amphitheater which was only discovered by accident 20 years ago.