Sunday was our last day of cultural site visits and may have been my favorite of those so far. We started fairly early with a long bus ride to Petra tou Romiou, also known as Aphrodite’s rock. According to ancient Greek mythology, it was here that Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was born. According to legend, Gaia, Mother Earth, asked her son to mutilate his father Uranus, the god of the sky. After trying to fly away from him, Uranus’s lower body fell into the sea and sprouted a white foam from which Aphrodite appeared and was carried into shore by a wave. Because of this legend, Cyprus is also known as the island of Aphrodite, and Paphos, the city near where this happened, used to be a hub for the worship of the goddess. Legend has it that the rock she sprouted from is part of the lower body of Uranus, and anyone who swims around it will be blessed with eternal beauty. I found this story to be incredibly interesting, for while I have always known basic stories of Greek mythology and seen paintings such as Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” which depicts her sprouting from sea foam, I didn’t know that this story was traced to a specific place and became so integrated into the surrounding culture. I know some people felt overwhelmed when we visited the site, lamenting that it was just a rock and didn’t appear special, but it was a beautiful view and the origin of rich cultural tradition, making it fascinating to me.

We then continued the rest of the journey to Paphos, where we were given a few hours of free time to get lunch and explore the area. A group of about twelve of us were surprised to be able to find a restaurant that was able to accommodate us all at a long table by the water. This was one of the more expensive meals of the trip, it seems Paphos is a more touristy area with primarily higher-end restaurants, but it was definitely worth it, and I enjoyed a salad full of various seafood such as shrimp, octopus, squid, mussels, etc. that I think freaked everyone out a bit, but it was delicious. After lunch, we still had time to walk around and shop a bit, and this was the first time in Cyprus we experience salespeople and restaurant hosts that were a bit pushy about getting us to make purchases or dine with them. This was such a stark contrast to what we’ve experienced on the trip so far and was an interesting regional difference to note.

After lunch, we met back up with Demetra for our last tour with her and walked to the House of Dionysus, a UNESCO world heritage site situated in the Paphos Archaeological Park. This building, a relatively modern structure that stands out amongst the landscape of ruins, was built to protect the beautiful mosaics that covered the floor of an old Roman residence. I knew we were visiting a site of ancient mosaics, but with little knowledge of what we were walking into, my relatively low expectations were blown away by the jaw-dropping beauty of what covered the house. These mosaics, which showed meticulous geometric patterns, historical figures, and mythological origin stories, such as that of Narcissus, were impeccably preserved. We were in awe of the perfect detail, with not a single stone out of place. Demetra explained that these beautiful mosaics had to be completed quickly as you had to lay the stones before the cement-like material dried, and I could not even begin to imagine how they were able to accomplish such a feat.

I feel like every day that we’ve done cultural visits, I’ve been even more awestruck than the day prior, which I never thought would be possible. I can’t believe that this small country holds such rich historical importance to so many different cultures, it’s truly amazing to see them all blend together on the island.