We began day 6 at 9 am with a bus ride to the Kourion archeological site. Throughout today, we were accompanied by our tour guide Georgia, who was very knowledgeable on seemingly everything we might have questions about. Here at the site, we saw the excavated ruins of a house. This house consisted of 36 rooms, including bathing chambers. We learned that at one time when the citizens of the town of this site could not use the public bathing chambers, the owner of this house opened his bathing chambers for the public to use. It was cool that we could see the paths and pipe remains of the irrigation system that they used. Next to the ruins of the house was an ancient amphitheater, which is apparently still used today for plays. Only half of the theater remains today, and it overlooks the sea down below. Today was an overcast day (with some light raining surprisingly), but the scenery was still beautiful.
After leaving this area, we took the bus to visit Aphrodite’s Rock. Along the way, we passed through a British territory area of the island, where we learned that people are not allowed to walk through, or even photograph. Throughout the ride, Georgia pointed out various landmarks, and told us how most of the trees growing are either olive trees or carob trees (which are the dark green trees with rounded tops). We then arrived at the beach of Aphrodite’s Rock. There are 3 main rocks in this area; a large one, a medium one, and a small one. Aphrodite’s Rock is the medium one. This rock signifies in mythology the spot where Aphrodite reached the coast after emerging from seafoam. Georgia informed us that there is a legend that if you swim three times around the rock, you will become more youthful (I’ll have to come back and try this when I’m older).
From here, we travelled to the Tomb of the Kings. Unlike the name suggests, there were not actually kings buried in the tombs; the name comes more from the style of the tombs. It was interesting to go walk down underground around the tombs. We then had a group lunch at Pelican Tavern (where there was in fact a real pelican walking around the restaurant!) in the main tourist area of Paphos. Following this, we visited a great mosaics collection at the House of Dionysus. These mosaics, from the 3rd century, covered the floors and depicted various myths and stories, some examples being the stories of Daphne and Narcissus. We then checked into our hotel, and I went for an evening swim in the sea with some of my friends (the water was freezing), then got Italian food. We ended the night with a walk along the beach under the full moon. Overall, probably my new favorite day!
Beginning day 7, we woke up at our new hotel and had breakfast beside the hotel’s pool. We then had a few hours free time to spend at the beach. The water was still very cold, but swimming during the day and under the sun made it bearable. We then passed a volleyball around, and enjoyed our time in the nice weather. After having lunch, we returned to the bus at 3 pm to once again return to Nicosia, and the bus ride was around two hours long. This weekend in Paphos was a great experience and a relaxing break from the business aspects of the trip. I am now refreshed and ready for the last few days ahead!