Day 3 Cyprus - Paphos
The day began with a breakfast in the sunshine outside the house and set us up for a day of touring Paphos.
The drive to Paphos was in glorious sunshine and the great roads got us there quickly. We took a quick tour along the beachfront to find some parking and scope out places we could return to for lunch. There were so many! There was also a statue of Aphrodite, famed to have risen from the foam of Paphos waters.
On the foreshore there was a busker playing the plaintive Peristeraki that my mum used to sing. I loved it and rewarded him with all the coins I was carrying.
We also toured the fort on the foreshore, which had served as fortification, prison and even salt store over the years.
Fortified by an enormous berry smoothie, we set off for the archaeological site which was located right on the shore and was VAST. We were guided around by an excellent interactive website. So much of the site had been excavated recently by a team from Warsaw university and they had exposed some amazingly intact mosaics based on a range of ancient myths. The temperature was perfect for touring and most of our 10,000 steps were spent exploring the ancient ruins.
We had earned our lunch and returned to the seafront for some excellent seafood at the Pelican Restaurant. Yes, there really was an enormous pet pelican asleep amongst the patrons' tables.
The plan was to tour the old town but on the way, we found the catacombs, some vast caves dug out by people in the 4th century so they could use the place to bury their notables. We walked through, but the place looked quite unsafe and we were pleased to get out of there.
The old town was interesting and Britt did find some very quirky slippers to buy, but by this time we were flagging and happy to rest in a French cafe with coffee and cake before heading home. The plan was to get some supplies from the wonderful Sigma bakery and have dinner at home. We feasted on dips, bread, salad and flaoona and we washed it down with some Cyprian shiraz before tucking into some great Sigma cakes..
