Cyprus - Day 1

Paphos

04.10.2010 - 17.10.2010 90 °F
View Cyprus & Lebanon on KDenzler's travel map.

It took about 17 hours in total, but I finally arrived in Cyprus late last night. For those of you thinking about visiting here, do not follow the route I took. There are much easier ways to get to Cyprus, but because I'm going to be returing from Beirut, I needed that to be my jump off point. And while I crawled to the finish line, my luggage gave up the ghost and stayed in Beirut for the night.

But I awoke to a beautiful Cyprus morning and my hotel is right on the Mediterranean, so all was good. My guide, Egon arrived bright and early and we headed out to the Paphos section of the island. Egon is an amazing wealth of knowlege on ancient Greek and Roman history. A big focus of today's travels were on mosaics and he knew not only who/what was in each mosaic, but also the myth behind it.

Tivia Question: Who is Cyprus' most famous export? Well technically, George Michael was born here, but that's probably not something you want to Their most famous export is Aphrodite. Her cult actually started here, not in Greece. Who knew? And yes, I even saw where she was born.

For the next 9 hours, Egon took me to ancient towns, homes, tombs, and ports around Paphos.

My day ended with some chicken slouvaki in an open air Cypriot restaurant and a barefoot walk back in the Mediterranean.

And yes, I was re-united with my luggage.

Tomorrow we head into the mountains!

Posted by KDenzler 04.10.2010 13:10 Archived in Cyprus Tagged cyprus