Recently, it was unfortunately a little quiet on our blog. Mel spent the last two big vacations, due to personal and family situation of Andreas, alone on the Arabian Peninsula and in West Africa. A planned short trip to Malta fell through for Andreas, because Covid confined him to bed for 3 weeks.
Now finally it should go for a short trip again together on tour. Our urge to discover should lead us this time to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and thus in two “countries”: the Republic of Cyprus in the south of the island and across the border – the so-called “Green Line” – also in the north, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Our quite uneventful flights, only interrupted in places by very unpleasant smells of some seat neighbors, led us via Krakow to Paphos, a port city in the southwest of the island. After we landed shortly after 9 p.m., we spent some time researching the correct departure time of the bus to the city center and bridged the time with a few well chilled drinks.
05.04.2023 – Paphos and Limassol
After our hour or so bus ride followed by a walk to our first accommodation, we slept like two stones. After starting our day with a typical cypriot english breakfast, we bridged the time until the bus ride to our second destination by visiting the royal tombs of Nea Paphos. The sun already had an enormous power in the morning and so it was of great advantage that the royal tombs were located directly on the Mediterranean coast and thus we felt a pleasant breeze.
Quite soon we started already in the bus in the direction of Limassol. In general, we were to cover most of the distances on foot or by bus over the next few days. Riding the bus in Cyprus was quite pleasant and, after understanding the system, also very uncomplicated and inexpensive.
And so, after a short check-in at our small hotel, we were off again on the next bus to Kourion and thus actually to the next “country” of this trip – Great Britain. At least the ancient site of Kourion – an Iron Age city-kingdom and an ancient city – is located on the territory of the British military base Akrotiri. You didn’t really notice anything about it, because the roads lead through the military area quite regularly and nowhere were borders, walls or fences to be seen.
The excavations of ancient Kourion recorded several buildings with numerous well-preserved floor mosaics, including the “House of Gladiators”, the “House of Achilles” (both named after motifs of mosaics there), the “Villa of Eustolios” (5th century AD), a theater with a view of the sea (1st-2nd century AD), an agora, an early Christian basilica and the “Earthquake House” with skeletons of human and animal inhabitants surprised by an earthquake.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around Limassol and enjoying a cypriot mezze platter with 20 different delicacies. Meanwhile, we noticed that we were actually out of season – many stores and restaurants were still closed and the city seemed to be deserted in places. After enjoying the local beer on our small balcony and admiring the view over the city, we discovered the very “unusual” TV program in our hotel. Between prayer TV, Hollywood movies in miserable picture quality and soccer, there was a channel with exclusively adult movies – uncensored and all day long.
06.04.2023 – Mountains and beach
After we had digested the “shock” about the TV program, we started the next day very early in the morning – without breakfast – again by bus, to the north and thus to higher realms. Our almost two-hour bus ride brought us in the immediate vicinity of the summit of Mount Olympos, the highest mountain on the island at 1,952 m with ski slopes and wooded hiking trails.
Our hike took us from Troodos at about 1,900m, past the Caledonian Waterfalls through beautiful forests with fresh air to Pano Platres at about 1,100m. The path was quite good to complete, only occasionally it was a little steeper, due to wetness (yes, we saw up here even remnants of snow mountains) a little slippery and sporadically we had to cross watercourses. In the morning it was quite cold at this altitude, but slowly we warmed up again through the movement – arrived in Pano Platres in the early afternoon, the best summer weather prevailed.
After a short refreshment, we decided to tackle another hiking trail in a southerly direction to another waterfall. This trail actually led us into steeper, more difficult terrain and so we started to sweat a bit, also due to the now summery temperatures and the time pressure due to the bus travel times. We literally flew down the gorge to the waterfall first and then back up again. Surprised by ourselves, we reached the bus stop in Pano Platres again after just under an hour – the outward and return journey to the waterfall was actually designed to take just under 2 hours. However, since we had made a mistake with the departure times, or had found different information, we could enjoy – together with 4 other, German tourists – still 1.5 hours waiting in the blazing sun.
Back in Limassol, we picked up our luggage from the “porn hotel” and, after a short stroll along the promenade, started the bus ride to Larnaka. After about 90 minutes we reached our destination and let the day end deliciously with freshly caught shrimp, mussels and squid directly on the beach.
07.04.2023 – Hiking, sun, military
Once again, a new day started without breakfast. At first, Mel wanted to go by bus in a southerly direction to visit the salt lake of Larnaka and a mosque – quite quickly, however, we discarded this idea, because this little detour would have cost us at least 3 hours and we wanted to go to the region of Agia Napa / Protaras today, to undertake, among other things, a hike at Cape Greco – the easternmost point of Cyprus.
As luck would have it, we had to change buses once and the bus stop was right at the sculpture park in Agia Napa. So we spent the waiting time in the blazing sun in this park. The sun was really relentless today and the temperatures were already reminiscent of high summer – this was to take revenge on both of us later with a juicy sunburn.
After a bus ignored us and simply drove on – due to the heat we had unfortunately briefly forgotten the local custom that you have to wave at bus stops to attract attention – the next bus took us to Cape Greco. We strengthened ourselves with a small sandwich and cold drinks at the visitor center and started with full luggage to our hike today.
Our way led us – on the cultural route of Aphrodite – first to the Blue Lagoon. Actually a beautiful place with crystal clear water. Unfortunately, it was very crowded, everywhere were tourists and “party ships”, from which extremely loud music resounded to us. The alcohol level of the mostly youthful present was obvious and so we decided after a cold drink on the beach quite quickly to continue our hike in the direction of the about 95m high Table Mountain directly at the Cape.
We walked further and further along the coast, the relentless sun and a stiff breeze were our constant companions. The trail was almost flat at first. However, we soon realized that we were on a circular route around the cape and no direct path led up the mountain. In the old tradition and in the complete absence of any reason, we chose the direct route to the summit and climbed over scree, through brushwood and always along the steep slope towards our goal. We were helped by two bamboo sticks that Andreas – like David Copperfield – suddenly “conjured” out of a dense thorny bush. Our efforts were rewarded on the summit with a wonderful view in all directions. With the peace monument on the summit behind us, we looked down – swinging our bamboo sticks – on the loudly roaring, alcoholic Englishmen on their party “pirate” ship, who roared even louder when they saw us on the summit.
Our way back to the visitor center was only interrupted by a short break and an encounter with the military. Without really looking at our map, we had taken a wrong turn once and suddenly stood in the middle of the restricted area in front of a watchtower with armed soldiers. Calmly but determinedly we started our way back and took a detour in order not to provoke another “incident”.
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