Roudia Bridge – the most beautiful medieval bridge in Cyprus

Roudia Bridge is the third of the medieval or the venetian bridges in Cyprus. I refer to Roudhia bridge as the “third” Medieval bridge because any website mentioning about the bridges in Cyprus refer to mostly the Kelefos bridge and in some cases, the Elia bridge too. There is rarely a mention of Roudia bridge. In fact, i found only one blog of a Britisher (The blog is closed now) who had mentioned about his “difficulties” in finding this bridge. The reason might be that the location of this bridge is very remote, deep within the Paphos/troodos range and the roads to this place are unmarked and very narrow and almost impossible to go with a regular car. We struggled to find the place and it took a lot of questions to absolutely-no-english-speaking cypriots to find it. But, I shall make it easier for you!
So, here is the way to go to Roudia Bridge: (It has been more than 4 months since we went for a Jeep trip (Christmas time). I shall try to recollect as much as possible. If you do follow the directions below and have something which can enhance the details, drop in a mail/comment.
  • First, go to Kelefos bridge. If you don’t know to go to Kelefos bridge, checkout my other post on kelefos bridge. Once you get down the slope, the road seems to go across the river. Those visiting Kelefos bridge, park here. But, to go to Roudia bridge, you have to make this river crossing. Check out the photo below from our Jeep trip many ago. Of course, at that time, i didn’t know about the Roudia Bridge and just did this crossing for fun.

  • Once you cross the river, the road climbs up. Keep heading towards Pera Vasa picnic site. At the pera vasa picnic site, you should see a treek trunk on display. This was supposed to be the biggest/oldest tree in the region.

  • After you cross the Pera Vasa Picnic site, you will come to a T-junction, where you have to turn right. I think the one on the right goes towards Mylikouri and the other towards Arminou. Not sure about this, but I am sure that you have take a right here.
  • If you keep going, you will come to a big fork in the road. In the middle of the fork, you will see a brown-board with an arrow to the left saying “Venetian Bridge”. This board points to a trail going down the hill. I don’t know whether this train goes to Roudia bridge, but the bridge is far away from here. You have to take the road going right (and downwards) towards Pano Panagia. We took the other one and went for a long distance and returned back. The road was too narrow to even attempt a 3-point turn and we had to travel a long distance just to find a spot to turn the jeep.
  • The moment you enter this road (after about a 10 metres), you will see two branches, one going straight and the other turning right. You have to turn right on this one. The one going straight stops at a check-post, probably a private road. This road goes downwards all the way to the bottom of the valley. Don’t get disheartened by the state of the road, you are almost there!
  • I assume that you will be on the lookout for a photo-op all throughout the way. If you don’t, better start looking out now. Otherwise, you will miss the bridge like we did. At one point, you will take a right and then go over a small road-bridge which goes over a river. The river should appear on your left with trees on either side. The photo below gives you an example as how the scene should look like.

  • The moment you pass this bridge, the road turns left and passes through a big open area which also has signs such as “Lighting fires is prohibited in this area”. At the end of the open area, the road turns right and upwards. Don’t go there. Look left and there you have the bridge!

Unfortunately, we didn’t find the bridge so easily. The moment we entered this open area, we saw a jeep speed of ahead of us climbing onto the road upwards. We also decided that it would be best to ask someone about the location. So, all our eyes were on the jeep ahead of us that we missed looking towards the left where we would have found the bridge. We chased the jeep for another 20 mins and came to a fork. At this fork, we saw a board (The only one!) which said “Gefri Roudia” and pointed in the direction we had come from! A little ahead, we saw another jeep and went to enquire. That guy spoke no English at all and didn’t understand the word “bridge”. So, i called up my Cypriot colleague and found that “Gefri” meant a bridge. By this time, another gentleman with his jeep had also joined us. Luckily, he spoke English. He told us that we had to go back and we would find the bridge at the bottom of the valley. So, we turned back and kept driving. This time, when we drove down the final stretch to the bottom of the valley, the bridge was there right ahead of us! Well, i was supposed to watch the road, but what were the others doing? We were so tired by then, that we had some snacks before proceeding for photo sessions!

The Road-bridge over which you drive across

Getting all the kit ready for the photo session!
 

Vidhya and Anit tried to cross the river, but it turned out to be too cold for Vidhya!

We are ready to pose wherever you want!

And then, there it is finally, the roudia bridge…

You can go on top of the bridge, but the other side is blocked. It abruptly finishes on a cliff. The colours of the trees and the leaves and the evening lighting proved irresistible to attempt lot of photos. This place should look heavenly in Spring. So, if you are reading this before Easter, go there during the Easter holidays!

   

After the round of the usual shots, we moved into the experimental photographs. When you Anith, “the brave”, Kumar around, you are guaranteed to get your share your share of weirdness!

Anith tries to do a Tarzan, but all that he achieved was to wet his ****s in the extremely cold water! Btw, the **** stands for “pant”.

 

More photos…

   

Another way to approach this bridge would be Ayios Ionannis, Arminou and then through the abandoned village of Vretsia, but i have heard it is almost impossible to find Vretsia, as all the signs pointing to this village have been removed. Hope that you enjoy visiting Roudia place (hope that you find it!). If you think that any other detail would explain the directions further, do let me know.

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