London :: UK
This years vitamin D fix
Places: Pafos, Coral Bay, Polis & the Akamas Peninsula.
Coolest thing I did: Loads of beach crawling
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Aphrodite was apparently formed from the foam of some other God's testicles. Just try picturing that as a Disney cartoon.
London has had a terrible summer this year. Utterly horrific. Coldest May on record, followed by the wettest June and July and hardly a sunny day to speak of. So I was mostly looking forward to this trip simply to get some sun. I've since been accused of acting like a Pom as all I've been going on about since I got back was how good the weather was. It's made me realise that this is in now way the holiday I would have taken had it been my call, but there's no harm in something different now, is there?
The holiday involved more of an inventory than I was used to, you know, 8 people instead of one, a 4 bed villa and 2 cars (instead of no cars) all parked just north of Pafos, tourist hotspot of the west coast of Cyprus. I think the hardest thing for me to adjust to was getting into the rhythm of 7 other people who wanted very much to unwind, 3 of whom I'd never met before. I'm used to traveling around a lot on holiday (I reckon in a week I'd normally have stayed in 5 different places and seeing a whole lot of island) so the idea of lazing about the pool until a late lunch and then getting out to see a little bit more of the local area was a big adjustment. However, I think all this forced relaxation did me well.
The Republic of Cyprus feels Greek, everyone speaks Greek, the food is pretty much all the meatier bits of Greek food and people pretty much all look Greek. Which means you have to stop yourself from referring to your present location as Greece. The countryside should be a bit of a giveaway as it's much drier and more rugged than anywhere I've seen in either the Greek Islands or on the mainland (someone used the term 'moonscape' at one point) and once you get out of the two touristy build ups in Coral Bay and Pafos itself it's all very undeveloped.
We took day trips to both sides of the Akamas peninsula on the very north western tip of the island, which was difficult in places due to the very un-rugged nature of our Renault Scenic minivan. The completely empty stretch of beach at Lara bay can be overlooked as you eat grilled chicken and pork are spectacular, even if a little bit un-swimable due to some heavy undertows. The opposing side, with the town of Polis is a proper working village complete with old stone churches and flagstone capped squares you can sit after a hard day on the beach and drink coffee you can stand a spoon up in. All very relaxing.
The most touristy thing we did was go and have a look at (and even climb) the Rock of Aphrodite. It's supposed to be the birthplace of the goddess of love, prostitutes, marriage, war and a few other things, who obviously casts a large shadow of Cyprus by the fact practically everything on the island is named after her in some way. The coast dramatically plunges into the blue sea and big rocks jut out of the water and the dark sand beach. The legend goes that if you nude up and swim around the rock 20 times at dusk you'll look 20 years younger. I don't know if I want to look 10 again. I reckon maybe it's for the oldies.
I came back from the trip quite happy to have eaten my fill of meat and seafood, to have a bit of a tan and to have not done very much but swim in pools or beaches. I do, however, have a slight feeling of restlessness due to not having even come close to a column or Turkish town the whole time I was there. I think Cyprus is somewhere I could revisit to take a better look at on my own terms, but I think I needed a good relax and dose of sun more than anything else this time.