Today, for the first time all trip, we headed to the western edge of the island of Cyprus on the Mediterranean coast. To say it was beautiful, was an understatement. Our first stop was a rocky beach which overlooked the famous Aphrodite’s Rock, where the Greek goddess is said to have emerged from the ocean (which she was born from). There was little sand along the beach, the majority being made up of different sizes of beautiful sedimentary rocks. After our short photo stop here, we headed to the city of Paphos, not too far away and the final major city which we were yet to visit. We started our time here at a Tomb site, in which many ancient kings of Paphos were buried. The tombs are a series of caves fortified by stone and ancient Greek pillars. It was very fascinating to see all the different chambers and sites where the Kings would have been buried. After a lunch on the pier of the bustling Paphos Harbor, we toured another UNESCO heritage site, the mosaics of ancient Byzantine era stone buildings. These mosaics were on the floors of the ruins of the buildings, and were very colorful, having been made up of thousands of individual stones. The mosaics were unlike any other I had seen previously, many depicting various ancient Greek mythological stories or interesting geometric patterns. We learned a lot of information here, especially relating to ancient stories such as that of Narcissus and the ancient Greek love tragedy that inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After visiting the royal ruins and mosaics, we spent the rest of the afternoon in Paphos harbor and walking the nearby beaches, filled with many restaurants and neat gift shops. So far, Paphos has been one of the places with the most tourist feel that we have been to. This weekend, with all the different city and cultural visits, has been extremely fun and I am excited to continue with our Limassol company visits for the rest of this week.
The West Side: Aphrodite’s Rock and Paphos
