We spend an overnight in Pafos, a coastal city, for the weekend. It was SO nice, let me tell you. We stayed in a really nice hotel that had a mini kitchen (complete with oven and electric stovetop burners) and a balcony overlooking the pool.
Before we got to the hotel, though, we made a few archeological stops to see ruins from ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. We sat at an old Greek theatre. This was really cool because there was one spot where the acoustics were amazing. You could hear your voice echoing everywhere in the amphitheater. We walked around for a little bit and just looked at the stairs the Greeks used to use to get into it, and it was cool to see how long everything has lasted. Apparently, the theatre is still functional and the first play of each season is usually a Shakespeare play of some sort. Theatre companies come from all over to perform there.
We also stopped at the House of Eustolius, which was an ancient Greek person’s home. I was far back in the crowd so it was hard for me to hear our tour guide’s explanations of things, so I did not learn that much about this place, unfortunately. It seemed to be a big house with a lot of pipes and a plumbing system. This was something we got to walk around a little bit that I wish we had spent more time at.
We also went to an old either Greek house whose floor was entirely made out of mosaics. I thought walking around this and the way it was displayed was interesting because they build little bridges over the floor so you could look at them without touching. Some of the mosaics were intricate designs, while others resembled Greek paintings because they were depicting various Greek myths. There was one showing the story of Narcissus, one showing the story of Echo and Apollo, and many others. It was very interesting to see the level of craftmanship that went into this. Apparently the floors took two to three years to build.
Afterwards, we stopped at Aphrodite’s rock. The water was insanely clear and the rocks were so smooth. A bunch of people climbed this huge rock, but I did not. It is, according to myth, the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty
We made it to Pafos in the evening. The water was also beautifully clear. We walked around the little boardwalk marina thing area. We had dinner at a little Italian place. I got spaghetti carbonara, but it was actually fake carbonara because on the menu it said it was made with egg and cream, but real carbonara is made with egg yolk and parmesan cheese poured over the pasta and stirred really fast so the egg does not coagulate. It was still very good. However, it was really heavy and I ate way too much way too fast, so I felt nauseous the whole walk back and was down for the count after dinner. I got a lot of sleep, though!
This morning, we went to the beach and I got a horrid sunburn on the back of my legs. Oh well! The beach was really nice, though. I enjoyed having a stretch of time where I could truly relax. This was my weekend in Pafos!