What better way to spend a birthday than crashing your family’s trip and coming along with them!? My parents were away for the month of my birthday so we decided to join them out in Paphos, Cyprus for a long weekend, here’s what we got up to!
Friday
Cyprus is around a 4-5 hour flight from London so it’s kind of pushing it for a long weekend, but we got a 6:30pm flight from Stansted arriving at Paphos at 1am local time to maximise our weekend.
Saturday
On Saturday morning we had a much needed lie in before waking up to a pretty traditional breakfast of Greek (Cypriot!?) yoghurt, fruit, honey and nuts. Once fed, we decided to head out and see some of the ancient sites around Paphos.
Our first stop was Kourion, which is an ancient settlement on a hilltop with mosaics, an amphitheatre, and many ruins, set overlooking the sea. Next up was Aphrodite’s Rock, supposedly the location where Aphrodite herself rose from the sea, and the reason Cyprus is known as the island of love. It’s also the location of a pretty good ice cream shop so of course we had to try some.
Driving back, we stopped off in Geriskipou, the home of Cypriot delight. We sampled a lot, as well as carob and candied nuts before picking up some gifts to take back home.
After a quick nap by the pool, we headed out for a Meze dinner at 8pm with June and Colin, some of my parents’ friends. The spread included tahini, spicy cheese dip, deep fried stuffed courgette flowers, aubergine, two different sausages – small spicy ones and sheftalia, souvlaki, pork chop, cauliflower, chips, Greek salad, and finally some watermelon to finish. Safe to say, we left feeling pretty stuffed!
Sunday
My’s birthday! Breakfast was yogurt again and also avocado with poached egg on toast while I opened birthday cards. We headed up to the Troodos mountains for the day, driving up through tiny little villages and stopped at winery where there was a Russian tour bus that just pulled in. The winery was running a tasting session for the tour bus which we sneaked in on. In pretty terrible Russian accents, we said “da” and they gave us tasting glasses.
After sampling wines, olive and food, we continued upwards to Omothos, a cute little town with narrow streets and a variety of fruit growing on trees. Andrew decided to try all of the fruits so he tried a horrid unripe olive from a tree, a sour grape from a tree, a caper, and a maribel plum (this one required me on Andrew’s shoulders to reach, but was definitely worth it!).
We popped in to a little cafe on the outskirts of the main town and got baklava and Cypriot coffee in a café, before going to explore the monastery. It was a traditional Greek Orthodox monastery, which was really interesting as it’s very very different to the churches we have back at home in England.
Next, we drove up to mount Olympus as high as we could, although we couldn’t get to the very top because of army base, and then drove back down to Platres and saw erotic nut stand (pretty sure some terrible Google translate had gone on there). From there, we drove back home, stopping at a really stunning view point on the way back down.
Dinner that evening was a Meze in old town Pafos. The dishes included flatbread, fava bean dip, tzatziki, chick peas with tahini, broad bean salad, couscous with beetroot, Greek salad, really good halumi, lountza, long spicy sausage, tomato vegetable bake, aubergene with cheese, pork and chicken chunks, big plate of kebab, and cheese with honey. And keo beer.
Monday
Back in London, we start every day with a trip to the gym, so we decided to join my parents at their usual Monday morning yoga class. I’m not sure yoga in a studio is ever going to live up to yoga by a sandy beach again! We spent the whole day relaxing, a much needed change from our usual hectic lives, reading books, and swimming in the sea.
That night we took a break from the huge Cypriot portion sizes and cooked dinner at home. Cypriot food is one of my favourite cuisines, really fresh ingredients, phenomenal sea food, and the best fruit and veg shops I’ve ever visited (seriously, they’re always one of the highlights of my trips there)
Tuesday
On our last morning we went to the Paphos Archeological site, which is a must do if you’re in the area! It’s a huge site with tonnes of mosaics, an ancient ruined castle (try and find the secret tunnel that goes underneath!) and the modern lighthouse. It’s right next to the harbour which is also really nice to walk along with an old fort where they hold concerts in the summer.
For lunch we went to my favourite of the whole trip, be warned, it can get busy! We went on a weekday lunchtime so we didn’t have to wait but I’m told that on an evening the queue can be long. It’s definitely worth it though! A tiny beach shack with beautiful decor nestled by the coast above some spectacular sea caves. And the food is amazing too, I had a halloumi salad and Andrew had a lamb wrap, with turmeric and ginger juice and raspberry, elderflower and rosemary juice to share.
A late flight back got us back in to London at 2am, just in time to catch a few hours sleep before work the next day!