Cyprus Holiday Guides and Photos.

Things to do on whilst on holiday on Cyprus including touring Pafos, the Troodos Mountains, Akamas, Beaches and Places in Cyprus.

Things to do in Cyprus. Apart from relaxing on Cyprus beaches - of which there are many - there are loads of things to do such as enjoying a driving tour of Cyprus or if you fancy some walking in Cyprus - perhaps up in Troodos mountains or out coastal hiking and beach visiting around the Akamas Peninsula - and the island also has some fine Gorges. We always prefer self-catering when on holiday although it's not that easy to find at times as most Cyprus holiday accommodation seems to be hotels. The reason we like self catering is that for a start it's usually considerably cheaper than using Cyprus hotels and since we are usually out all day going to various places in Cyprus and doing some walking etc. we do not need/require lots of facilities. Secondly with self catering you get a fridge and can thus have the very necessary iced water/drinks to take out with you.

This topic covers general things we found about Cyprus including eating and transport and so on as well as various locations we visited in the Pafos area as well as Troodos. For specific locations where we did our walks (with descriptions) please see our Cyprus Walks - note these pages also contain many photographs of the areas concerned so may be useful to see various places in Cyprus which are nice to visit perhaps by car if you do not fancy walking.

Although our Cyprus holidays are about getting as much walking in as possible (which is a good way of seeing places and local life) and taking lots of photos whilst doing so we do like a little bit of sightseeing as well and it's easy to spend hours enjoying some Cyprus Archaeology - the archaeological sites around around Pafos area are excellent. We also of course enjoy visiting beaches and coves particularly which are a little remote - and because of the effort to get to them often deserted - and are not covered with chairs and things - i.e. more on the wild side where you can strip off and enjoy some natural swimming and sunbathing if you want. There are plenty of naturist freindly beaches to be found on Cyprus if you care to look and the islands's reliable weather helps enjoy them too. We have a separate topic showing some of the beaches around Paphos and Akamas in particular which can be found via our Cyprus Beach Guide. Please note there are no photographs or content on this or any of our web sites which are unsuitable viewing for people of any age. Cyprus is of course a large island so in no way could we cover very much of it during a couple of weeks holiday - our hiking instructions/ideas info mostly concern walks we did around Paphos, Coral Bay, Polis, Lara, Latsi, Akamas and around Cyprus's brilliant Troodos mountains.

Cyprus Pafos. Paphos is one of Cyprus's major holiday resorts and has it's own airport which is located a few kms's to the south of the town - so transfers are pretty fast. Mid September is still within the main tourist season in Cyprus so Paphos is pretty busy and also prices for just about everything are not at their best from a visitor's point of view. There are lots of restaurants in and around the front in Pafos as well as quite a few "leather" and other touristy type shops plus banks and also a few supermarkets. There are also plenty of bars and a more dedicated "noisy" area which is full of very loud music bars all trying to outdo each other to produce even louder music.

A bus service runs between the Port area and Coral Bay and is pretty good - with no.10 and no.15 services running around every 15 minutes both ways right up to the last bus at 11pm and a flat bus fare. There are also lots of taxis to be had - as usual agreeing a price before getting into a taxi is essential.
Car hire is not particularly cheap on Cyprus but then we are probably more used to the type of prices you can find on the Greek Islands - with full insurance we had to pay 20 Euros per day for an Astra. On reflection we probably should have sorted out a hire-car on the web before we left England as it was quite a "mess-about" trying to do this once we arrived in Cyprus.

Food and Wine. The "harbour-front" restaurants at Pafos we found to be a little more expensive than if you wandered back a few streets but overall wherever we ate the food was nicely cooked and there was quite a lot of it. We also did think the wine to be not that exciting, local wine being apparently at it's best in the Spring so we were told at one restaurant and we were there in September!. We ended up using 4 different places to eat - one Italian, one Indian and two "Taverna type" ones which were of course Greek owned and run.

Cyprus Archaeology. Pafos has one really huge archaelogical site which you enter near the Fort and which we found to be really interesting - lots of mosaics and Roman houses and baths etc. but if the weather is warm remember to take a hat and a bottle of water. Also another site called the Tombs of the Kings is located on the edge of Pafos - this site has extensive rock cut burial chambers to look at. Please take a look at our Cyprus Photos where you can find quite a few pictures from these archaeological sites plus lots more.

Pafos coastline up to Cape Drepano including Coral Bay. A main road runs right along the coast as far as Cape Drepano - this road is incredibly busy with loads of buses, coaches, taxis, lorries and cement mixers as well as cars using it from early morning to late at night (well not the lorries late at night of course). The reason for the heavy traffic is the incredible amount of building going on right along the coast - every spare bit of ground seems to have houses and villas being built on it and we have never seen to many road-side bill-boards advertising these houses as here. Coupled to this there are quite a lot of Cyprus hotels along the coast too.
Near the Archaeological Site is Pafos Municipal beach which is sandy and further along the coast from there are various rocky coves to explore. Just as the road from Pafos nears Coral Bay there is a longish mostly pebble beach and then the Coral Bay main beaches are a bit further on. The main road ends at Cape Drepano where there are several bits of beach as well as a nice church to look at.

Cape Drepano up to Lara and then up a bit more. Just before reaching Cape Drepano/Agios Georgios a road goes off on the right - this is a tarmac'd but smaller road which eventually becomes an unmade road as it heads past the Avakas Gorge entrance and on to Lara Turtle beach and then further up the Akamas Peninsula. This is a favourite place for 4WD folk to play - the track is full of sometimes quite big potholes especially at the start and as far as the Lara beach Taverna turnoff. However you do not need a 4WD - we went quite happily right up to Kannoudia Islet using our Astra - you just have to drive slowly and not wreck the underneath on the potholes i.e. miss them!.

There is another really nice sandy beach just after Lara beach and then various pebble beaches to be found as you continue along. On maps the track is shown as ending by Kannoudia Islet but in fact it does continue on along the coast - there is also a track junction near here which takes you across the Peninsula to Loutra - we have walked this area and don't think it is at all possible in a car and some bits would be iffy even in a good 4WD unless you are experienced driving such - very rocky and very slippery/steep scree descents/ascents etc. even the goats were being careful in places...

Loutra, Latsi (Lakki), Polis and Pomos. Loutra is the location of another Aphrodite Cyprus type site of interest - this time it's her bath apparently. Lots of people come here to see this - we were there primarily to do a couple of walks into the Akamas hills and to walk up to the end of the island at Cape Akamas. There are several trails which start from Loutra and because of Ms. Aphrodite there is a restaurant and a large car park available. In addition there is a quite large camp site quite near the Bath. Between Loutra and Latsi there is again plenty of Villa building going on - Latsi itself has several restaurants and two reasonably sized supermarkets by the roadside - Latsi beach is also quite extensive and has sun-chairs and things available for hire. On this day's tour we decided to continue along the coast to Pachyammos and have a look at the Turkish border. The first place of note to go through is Polis - yet another place with villa new-builds in full swing - then we followed the coast on up to Pomos and finally to Pachyammos - the road goes right alongside the coast and is bordered by (an almost continuous) pebble beach - with hardly a soul to be seen.

Kato Platres, Troodos Mountains, Mount Olympus, Mon. Trooditissa. We do not know much about Platres as we just went via it to get up to Troodos for our walks. Platres does appear to have a lot of accommodation in the shape of chalets to cater for the ski season - we talked to some people we met whilst walking in the area who were staying in Plates and they said the place was dead during the evenings. I know that of the 3 times we drove through around 9 a.m. there were already lots of coaches and cars around with tourists meandering about looking at something or other (in the middle of the road of course), and that on our way back around 6 p.m. there was hardly a soul to be seen.
Moni Trooditissa is probably a really lovely Cyprus monastery - sadly they don't seem to like anyone other than Greek Cypriots as is made quite clear from the red worded posters on the entrance gates saying anyone else can bog off - this was quite disappointing particularly to my wife who likes looking at monasteries and churches but accepts that perhaps sometimes you cannot go completely inside an actual monastery. At Trooditissa you cannot even look at the building apart from the walls going alongside the road on one side - there is however a nice Cyprus walk at Trooditissa which starts from here so all was not lost.

Cyprus - Mount Olympus  - is simply reached by walking up a road (or driving up it of course) - we went up to the top as part of a nice walk and hikers do need to get to highest points if possible - height we measured on our GPS was 1947 metres. We had an ice cream and then a chat with the very bored soldier guarding the military site gates and that was about it - the views are pretty good from the top though. At a guess Cyprus must boast one of the highest golf tees in the Med. - presumably the round white object was a super golf ball? woops you are not meant to mention it of course... and we certainly did not take a photo whilst up there. However my wife did get a nice photo of possibly something similar from further round our Mount Olympus walk.

Troodos Village and The Troodos Mountains - well Troodos Village was quite a mess when we visited - we had gone there since one of our planned Troodos Mountain walks started from the car park. There were several stalls flogging something or other and loads of lorries and bull-dozers and tarmac and stuff all over the place - it does look as if some money has been allocated and the place is being tarted up - does sort of need it. There is a large car park available on the other side of the village and this is also where several walker's trails start - just before getting to Troodos there is also a large Visitor Centre and car park.

Several other Cyprus places visited - Pissouri Bay, Akrotiri's beaches and Episkopi (Kurio, Apollo Temple and Kolossi). Pissouri is located about half way between Pafos and Limassol - as you travel down to the beach the whole area seems to be covered in newly built or half built villas - every inch of it. Down by the sea there is a reasonably sized car park but this is used of course by the beach people so parking spaces are not always easily found. On the road from Pissouri to Episkopi can be found the Apollo Temple and further along the Kurio - the latter is very interesting to walk round. The Kolossi is located on the other side of Episkopi and is certainly worth visiting - you can walk inside and go up to the top of this massively thick walled building and there are also other bits being excavated in the compound.

Good Websites about Cyprus:-
Sunflower Books Visit their site - We always take a Sunflower book if available.
Walking the Greek Islands Harald has a section on Cyprus plus lots of links plus stuff about Greece
Greece Holidays