When I put this Pafos itinerary in my blog schedule, I thought it might be possible that people might be going on holiday again by April. Well, we know by now that every date, estimate and guess is wrong in a pandemic. But if you’re hoping to get to Cyprus later in the summer, this 1 week Pafos itinerary might be of use to help you plan.
It’s a week in the Pafos area for people who perhaps aren’t into spending seven solid days lying on the beach. Being a polar bear, I’d be so well-fried by that, you could serve me on a plate with an egg, so this is aimed more at doing things and exploring the west of Cyprus. There’s still plenty of room for the beach and the pool and I leave the evenings a bit bare because I usually ate at home and wandered down to the sea, but I know other people like to go out for a proper meal and drinks and dancing and that sort of thing. You can figure that out for yourself.
Day one
My flight must have arrived about mid-afternoon so spend the rest of day one getting to your accommodation, getting some food in if you need to and getting settled. I stayed in a self-catering villa with a pool in Coral Bay so my afternoon was spent exploring the sea views down the road and then coming back and jumping in the pool. Depending on where you’re staying and what it has, maybe you could go for a walk along the local beach or an early evening sunbathe before going into town for dinner. I’m not the right person to recommend food places and anyway, this was 2018 and I have no idea what’s there three years later.
Day two
Go down to the shore at Coral Bay, a little north of Pafos town. It’s much quieter than the town beaches and although it might not be as good for sunbathing, those weird weathered rockforms are enough to keep me busy for ages.
After lunch, go back into Pafos town, have an ice cream on the harbourside and then amble down to the harbour and visit the castle. It started life as a fort for defensive purposes and has been destroyed, dismantled and rebuilt at least twice over its thousand-year history. It’s been a fort, a prison and a warehouse and now it’s a tourist spot. Great views from the roof and you may even get to see some lizards sunbathing up there.
Spend the rest of the afternoon down in the older part of Pafos, eat at one of the harbourside fish places, walk along the seafront and then watch the sun sinking into the Mediterranean.
Day three
Time for some culture. Back to Pafos again and this time, take in the Tombs of the Kings, a huge archaeological area on the outskirts of the town where a dusty, scrubby field on the cliffs is concealing a huge network of underground tombs and temples, plenty of which are accessible, as long you’re a bit careful scrambling up and down un-railed stairs and crawling through the occasional hole. I was hugely impressed with the Tombs of the Kings and would definitely go back.
In the afternoon, get yourself back to the old part of central Pafos, to the Pafos Mosaics. Did you know Cyprus has extensive Roman remains? Well, it does and it’s spectacular. The remains of the buildings are interesting, an entire town laid out, complete with surviving columns and wells and baths and there’s a marketplace and the remains of an ampitheatre but the clue’s in the name: this is all about the mosaics. Some of them are outdoors and incredibly well-preserved and the House of Dionysos is incredible. It’s a huge, an absolute mansion even by modern standards and the mosaics are so perfect that they’ve built a roof and walkways over it. I look at this sort of thing and vow that I’ll have a perfect detailed mosaic floor in my bathroom when I have a house of my own, no matter how ridiculous it looks.
Take a walk along the beach at sunset – Pafos and Coral Bay are west-facing so they get some beautiful sunsets and while there’s a certain pleasure in watching them from your balcony with a glass of wine – or apple juice, I’m so not a wine person – you have to take it in from the beach at least once.
Day four
You’ll need a car for this but take a ride up into the Troodos Mountains. It’s a world away from the beach and the Roman remains of the coast. Our landlady recommended the little village of Platres and Troodos village and we parked under Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain on the island and went to the village of Omodos on the way back, where we had a little look around the monastery. My guidebook says this is about the most touristy village in the region but nothing is noticeably touristy out here; it’s just got a handful more bars than the other villages we stopped in and the occasional souvenir shop. If it’s touristy, it’s because it’s quaint and charming and old-fashioned and has an interesting monastery, although you’re not allowed in the churchy bits.
That’s going to take up most of your day but you should find you have time to go out for a bite to eat in the evening once you get back to the Pafos area.
Day five
In the morning, head a little north to spend a few hours at the small beach resort of Latsi, near Polis. Lots of cats, lots of beach, lots of boats. In its way, this feels more like the sort of beach resort we have in the UK than Pafos does and it has a good selection of open-air eateries along the seafront to the left of the car park.
In the afternoon, we went to Palaepafos, another archaeological site, home of a four thousand-year-old Bronze Age Sanctuary of Aphrodite. A lot of it hasn’t survived a series of 1st century earthquakes but there’s a medieval manor filled with artifacts and pottery, there are plenty of ruins of houses and temples and there’s the mosaic of Leda and the Swan, although the version outside in the fresh air is a reproduction (the original is safely inside in the museum). On the other side of the road is a medieval church, which was closed when we were there, although there’s a bell rope on the outside that does sound the bell. I don’t recommend doing so.
In the late afternoon or early evening, go out to the sea caves at Coral Bay – great holes worn in the striped cliffs. I don’t think it’s doable to actually go in them but you can see them from the clifftop and they’re definitely worth seeing.
Day six
Settle in for a big day of culture: we headed west almost to Lemesos to the dramatic Ancient Kourion, which is the remains of a small city with surviving ampitheatre, a palace and some more mosaics. There are enough buildings surviving that I walked around Ancient Kourion imagining that I was a Roman, a gladiator in training. I really enjoyed Ancient Kourion.
Then, five or ten minutes down the road is the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates, a sort of Cypriot version of the Greek Apollo. Plenty of ruined buildings here, plenty of columns and its pride and joy, two surviving soaring golden columns of the sanctuary itself. Do these two as a pair – we did Apollo Hylates the next day while we waited for our flight but it makes so much more sense to do them together.
Finish them off with a quick stop at Ancient Kourion Stadium, which is on the road between the two. Really, it’s little more than a long thin sports field, now all dust, with raised banks that would once have been raised enough for hundreds of spectators. I dare you to walk along it and not pretend you’re a chariot-racer.
By mid-afternoon, you should be done with the Roman remains and you can head to Kolossi Castle, a great square medieval castle and the remains of a sugar processing plant from around the thirteenth century. It’s possibly not worth making the journey for by itself but since you’re in the area to see the amazing ruins, you might as well.
It’s your last night so enjoy the pool, the beach, the sunset and the local entertainment.
Day seven
Our flight wasn’t until the evening so after spending the morning packing and then turning the villa upside down in search of my dragon necklace, which I’d definitely had the day before. I don’t have enough selfies to prove it but we’d have had exactly the same process if I hadn’t been able to find it. It never showed up and I’m still very sad about it, so if you stayed in a villa in Coral Bay and found a silver dragon on a chain, it’s mine and I really miss it.
Once that was all done, we went out for the day and we went to Petra tou Romiou, which is a gloriously blue bit of sea with a rock sticking out of it where Aphrodite was supposed to have come ashore. It’s a pebbly beach rather than a sandy one but it’s so beautiful and even more so from the top of the cliff, where I highly recommend you stop for an ice cream while admiring the view.
Afterwards we went back to Pafos for a last wander, a last ice cream, a last paddle and something to eat before driving back to the airport. And that’s it, my seven day Pafos itinerary.
