The Cyprus Blog at TripToCyprus.com

written by Rajaram S

If you can call any trek dramatic, then it has to be this one. The views and the thrills offered by this trek are amazing and this has to be one of the best coastal treks in Cyprus. I found this trek from a book called “Walks in Cyprus”, but this is a very old book and the directions don’t hold good any longer as he refers to “a building under construction” in many places as references and they are obviously no longer in that state.
Highlights of this trek
- Excellent photo opportunities with the cliffs and the sea
- An isolated beach at the end of the trek, reachable only by boat or through this walk
- Pissouri Village is just a short drive away from Paphos/Limassol

Things to note if you are going on this trek
- You need good shoes with a strong grip as almost the entire route consists of just barren loose rocks and is very slippery. Some sections of this trek are extremely close to the edge of the cliff, so you wouldn’t want to risk “slipping” over the edge!
- Take lot of water. Even the downhill section gets tiring. It takes approximately an hour and a half (with lot of photo breaks) to go downhill and an equal amount of time uphill. Uphill is much easier.
- The best time to do this walk is in early winter or in spring. You are totally exposed to the elements on this walk and it can get very hot/cold if you are walking in the peak seasons.

How to get to the starting point of the trek: The treks starts from the top of the hill on which Pissouri village is located. Pissouri village is a short drive from Limassol/Paphos. Once you drive up to the centre of Pissouri, keep on going straight (there is only one narrow road) until you come to a fork in the centre of the road. Take the left and keep going. You should always be on the “main” road and not venture into the small exits which lead to apartment complexes. After a while you should see a tall tower somewhere at the end of the road. This is supposed to be a military complex. Park anywhere near the apartments before the tower complex and walk around the tower to go behind it. You should hit a trail clearly visible at the edge of the cliff. Start walking towards the right (west) towards the beach. That’s it, you are on your way.

I have been on this trek three times. The first time, we didn’t know the correct starting point, tried to find a way ourselves ( we knew we had to reach the beach, it should be easy to find a way!), got lost and ended up on a cliff which had no way out! The second time, we took a better approach, followed a stream’s course (They all have to flow into the sea, right) and ended up at the top of the 20 foot waterfall which we obviously couldn’t climb down. But, we managed to climb up the sides and find the correct path and we reached the beach. The third time ( very experienced now!), we went on the correct path. I am writing about all the three attempts below. So, if you are just interested in the correct way, scroll down to the third story. But, you might miss some good photographs if you do so

First (unsuccessful) attempt:

We didn’t quite understand the map drawn in the book for this particular trek. There was a mention of a goat enclosure. We found one, assumed that this was the one mentioned and started walking in the direction of the beach. After 10 minutes, we realised that there was no way that this could have been the correct way, but we decided to press on anyway. We also saw a herd of mountain goats on the way and felt happy that we were not the only living beings around. We finally reached a cliff beyond which, we concluded, there was no safe path towards the sea.(the place where Gopal is standing in the first pic above) So, we started climbing the cliffs and rocks on this cliff for lot of photo ops. Looking back, this attempt was lot of fun as it was totally investigative in nature and at some places, it was a real struggle to keep going.

Second attempt (Took lot of time, but finally made it):

This time Puneeth gave the suggestion of following the path of what would have been a stream in the rainy season(The path in the first photo above). It was an interesting suggestion and we enjoyed the initial part of the walk. Since we were following the stream, we had to walk through narrow gorges, over rocks and some pretty slippery terrain. The most fun was to climb down the places where there would have been a waterfall in the rainy season. We did climb down quite a few of them, some even around 6-7 feet tall. Puneeth and i decided to follow the exact path of the stream which meant scrambling through thorny bushes into steep gorges while others preferred the safer longer route.

The path became more and more meandering (we were enjoying it). Then as i was walking around a blind corner, i came to a waterfall. Good that i had been walking slowly, otherwise, i cannot imagine the situation i could have been in. The fall was more than 10-12 feet high and there was no way we could climb down the wall. We had no option but to look for other routes. But, we were stuck in a gorge with steep walls on either side. We didn’t want to retrace our route, so we took the decision to climb the walls. It was tough, but we managed it and continued on “top of the stream” towards the sea. Luckily, we saw two other trekkers in the distance, the kind who come out with a backpack and walking sticks (the so-called pros) and they seemed to know where they were going. So, we went in their direction and found something resembling a track. We realised that this was the elusive path we had been looking for and finally managed to reach the beach. Btw, this was the first and only trek in which Parthipan was short of breath and needed rest!

Third Attempt (Now, we are pros on this trek!):
So, to continue from the initial paragraphs, once you park near the tower complex, go around it (from the left) and keep going towards the edge of the cliff. There you will see a clear goat-path going towards the right. This is the track you should take. All along the track you will see markers put by trekkers (even we have contributed to quite a few of them) consisting of few rocks on top of each other. So, if you see them, you know for sure that you are on the right track. There are even markers on the beach to tell you that you have reached the correct beach !!

The path can get slippery at places and it was interesting to see the approaches taken by my friends in overcoming those obstacles!

i was the first to reach the beach and has some good opportunities to take photos of the rest of the gang climb down.

Don’t forget to take lot of breaks during the trek for taking photographs. If the weather turns out to be fine, you can get some real nice pictures. Enjoy the trek and drop in a comment about your experience!

written by Rajaram S

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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written by Rajaram S

Ayios Neophytos Monastery was supposedly found by a Cypriot Saint in the late 1100s. The monastery and its room were carved out of the mountain by the Saint and hence is also known as the cave monastery. It is just under a 20 minute drive from Paphos and is on top of a 900 m hill. The drive up to this hill is excellent offering good views of Paphos and its surroundings.

There is a chapel right across this monastery. There are many beautiful frescoes found here. If you are interested in mosaic work, you will find many of them (like the one below) in this monastery

To locate this monastery on the map, look to the north of Pafos and find a village named Tala. This monastery can be seen to the north-east of this village. If you want more details of this monastery and its history, you can check this page.

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written by Rajaram S

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written by Rajaram S

• It is 7 kms long. 7 kms is not a big deal for the regular rambler, but half of this trail is uphill and the other half downhill. The uphill section is through dozens of switchbacks thus easing out the strain of climbing.
• Do not attempt this trail in summer. You may not make it to the top! We did this trail in early winter and were lucky enough to have a cool breeze throughout the day. The climb to the top is out in the open without any shade and it can be excruciating in summer. Winter or Spring is the best time for this trail.
• Do not forget your camera. The views are awesome. If you have never been to Akamas before, then you will enjoy the views even more.
• The whole trek could take anywhere between 3-5 hours depending on the number of stops you make.

The starting point of this trail is right next to Baths of Aphrodite. From the parking lot, there are a series of steps to Baths of Aphrodite. An earthern road to the right goes to Fontona Amarosa. Once you climb the steps to Baths of Aphrodite, you will see a board (to the right) marked as “walking trail” or something like that. Once you go on that path, you will join a wide road (which would have come from the fontona amarosa exit). This road is the trail. After a while, the road branches off to the right towards fontona amarosa, while you start to climb up towards the top of the trail.

The mid-point of the trek is a well signposted place. There is a huge tree with a bench below it, for resting i presume. This is the intersection point of the Aphrodite and the Adonis trails. We spent a while at this place fooling around and also conveying some words of appreciation for the people who we felt would not have lasted this far!

The second half of the trek is downhill through a rugged path which is supposed to resemble a trail. This path looks more like the mess caused by water running downhill, but it is fun clambering over the rocks. This path finishes close to the parking lot. Actually, the moment you see something which you recognise from the start of the trek, take a deroute and cut across the bushes.

It was cloudy and it started drizzling. Vidhya commented that the only thing that was missing to make it perfect was a rainbow and lo! we turned ahead and saw a rainbow. One end of a rainbow seemed to finished right on a big rock close to the coast.

After the trek, if you have time, you can go to the restaurant opposite the parking lot and climb down the stairs to the sea. The waves are pretty good here and it is a nice place for a cool down after the trek!

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written by Rajaram S

The road to the right looks bad, but is accessible to ordinary cars, though a bit tricky at times with one side being a steep drop to the canyon floor. That is me, guiding a friend through the rocky terrain. But, things have improved over the past few years maybe because of the running of E4, the European long distance trail close to Avakas. The road condition is still the same, but there is a parking lot near the start of the walk with picnic benches and running water. But, it is good that the roads have not been paved because it is this remoteness which adds to the beauty of this place. From the parking lot, it is around a 30 minute walk to the gorge.

The first time we went to Avakas, we walked for around 20-25 minutes and didn’t see anything resembling a gorge. We saw a couple coming back and asked them about it. They said that they had been another 100 metres, but didn’t see anything and hgence were walking back. But, we decided to press on. We didn’t drive over a 100 kilometres from limassol for nothing. At probably the 110th metre, the gorge started!

If you are going in winter/spring, be ready to walk in flowing water, as the gorge is actually a river and when we went there few weeks back, it was quite slushy in places and we had to do quite a bit of jumping around in order to save our shoes from the water.

The evening sunlight and the spring colours gave some very good photo ops.

The brave have lot of opportunities to get adventurous and try their rock climbing skills on the steep slopes of the gorge.

Once you enter the gorge, the light reduces drastically and it can get a bit cold too. The highlight of the gorge is a huge stone stuck between the walls of the gorge. This is the place which is often photographed and shown whenever Avakas gorge is referred to. The photos below are of the same place during various trips (different seasons, different times of the day with no manipulations of the photo) and you can see the effect of the light in these photos.

Though the walk is actually only about a 30 minutes, we spent almost 2 hours as we stopped at every possible photo opportunity.

From avakas gorge, only a short drive away is the famous lara beach. Lara Bay is famous for its nestling turtles (though I haven’t seen any of them). It is a big sandy beach, in contrast to the beaches in limassol and paphos.

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written by Rajaram S

So says the story written on the last page of the menu card at the Keralam restaurant. And, it is 100% true, the food there indeed makes you crave for more. As they claim, it is the only authentic south-indian restaurant in Cyprus and as far as i know, the only place where you get Dosas and Parottas (not the indian Paratha).

I am used to Indian restaurants being North Indian and having South Indian dishes on a separate page (or in a remote corner). But this one is South Indian and you experience this right from the time you open the menu. Urulai Kazhangu, Meen Curry and Kerala Parotta. Authentic South indian, indeed! You also have the Thali on a copper dish with the various side-dishes in small cups

It is not a once-a-week kind of restaurant with the prices being slightly on the higher side, more so for us because it is a 1.5 hr drive from Limassol to Coral Bay, but it is definitely a good restaurant to go to for special occasions as the ambience complements the good food.

Go ahead, enjoy a nice dinner at Keralam. Call them on their phone at 26622877 for reservations.

written by Rajaram S

written by Rajaram S

• Get your own tents. They have stopped renting out tents. Also, get some bedding/pillows to put inside the tents as the ground is uneven, unless you want to totally rough it out!
• You have to get your own lighting. Either you can get a long wire with a bulb and attach it to the electricity outlets available or you can get one of the portable lamps which run on gas (like the ones you see in the middle of one of the photos below). They cost around 10 pounds and are available in all the big supermarkets. The gas containers last for around 4 hrs each and a replacement costs under 50 cents.
• It can get cold in the nights. Though it is very hot nowadays, we found it to be pretty cool in the mornings and a light blanket was needed.
• Try to get a portable stove to make the wonderful late-night or early-morning tea/coffee. The cafe there near the camping site is a lame substitute.
• Take Torch Lights. You will definitely search for dropped keys at least once
• Mats to put on the ground. Or you can use the sun-screens of the cars as a substitute.

I had always wanted to drive along the road to the east of Polis, going towards Pomos and Kato Pyrgos. It is supposed to be one of the most picturesque drives in Cyprus. On Sunday, after we packed our stuff and left the camping site, we decided to go for this drive. It was a good drive even though it was 12 in the noon and it was very hot. This place would look much more beautiful in winter and spring with the beach on one side of the road and the hillocks on the other. The road goes close to the Kokkina, the Turkish Cypriot enclave surrounded on all sides except the sea by the Greek Cypriot part and totally cut-off from the other Turkish Cypriot areas. Even after 6 years of roaming around a lot in Cyprus, there are times like this when i go to an area or drive on a road for the first time. This is testimony to the fact that Cyprus has a lot more to offer than just its beaches and you can never get bored of it.

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written by Rajaram S