Who would win, Aphrodite or Poseidon?” my five-year-old daughter, Hope, asked. Tricky question, I replied, wondering how many times a day ancient Roman children bugged their parents with pantheon rankings. “Oh, this one would win! She’s half-woman, half-fish, half-lots-of-dogs,” Hope shouted, pointing at an intricate black and white pebble floor mosaic. “Good thought,” I told her, “but actually Scylla was killed by Heracles.” Hope looked as if she might cry, until she spotted another large mosaic, this one of a triumphant Dionysus on a chariot, and began cooing over the god’s fabulous crown.
My expectations for bringing two young children to Nea Paphos, the ruins of an ancient city dating to the 4th century BC, were appropriately low. But I wasn’t going to let that put us off. I studied Classics at university and, for me, a big part of the draw of Cyprus were its dusty and sprawling ruins. And, sure, I spent more time trying to free Isaac, my three-year-old, who locked himself inside one of the very hot modern bathroom cubicles than I did in the House of Theseus, and we didn’t make it anywhere near the 5th-century basilica, but the visit was a big thumbs-up. Turns out these Greek gods, their myths and their fish-dog hybrid art still have pulling power.
For an island that’s half the size of Wales, Cyprus is huge on history. It has always been hot property, rich in copper and timber, and, crucially, at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Legend holds that it’s the birthplace of Aphrodite. The Phoenicians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Romans, Venetians, Ottomans and British at some point all conquered the island. For the Crusaders, it held a particularly special position on the way to the Holy Land. All left their mark: the island is overflowing with Byzantine churches, Ottoman castles and Roman amphitheatres.
Though the prize for strongest legacy goes to St Helena of Constantinople who, apparently, shipped over two boatloads of cats to a monastery to deal with an infestation of snakes in AD327. Over 17 centuries, they have evidently reproduced with such ferocity that there are now an estimated 1.5 million of them, mewing, purring and taking the odd swipe at overenthusiastic toddlers all over the island.
Most of the island’s invaders these days are tourists, who mainly stick to the very nice beachside resorts near Paphos and Limassol, or head to the strips of Ayia Napa, where Hope’s party god Dionysus and his colleague Aphrodite don’t get a lot of time off. If you want proper heat, even in shoulder seasons, the allure is strong. The island has on-tap sunshine for up to 340 days a year, 160 beaches, and is an easy 4.5-hour flight from the UK. We visited for a week in October half-term — and it was clear skies, a strong 26C and balmy seas.
Cyprus travel guide
For the first half, we stayed at the Almyra, a minimalist, white-walled and low-key resort in Paphos with five pools and really good restaurants (for adults and children) that’s set around olive and palm trees. The vibe felt sexy, not pre-schooly, until we hit up the mega breakfast buffet at 7.30am, which felt like an Ottolenghi takeover of a Bright Horizons nursery. We were very much at home.
Mornings were spent flicking between the Almyra’s pools and the beach club the hotel is partnered with, a small, red sand beach a five-minute walk along the promenade. Around mid-morning, I’d break away and join a handful of weathered older local ladies in excellent vintage swimsuits in splashing water over my back (to prevent heart attacks, one explained) before swimming to some buoys about 30m away. Which was all wonderfully calming, until Hope and Isaac discovered that the sea was deliciously warm and shark-free, and became very keen to join too.
10 of the best villas in Paphos, Cyprus
I was itching to explore and after lunch we would rip Hope away from whoever her new friend that day was and head out on trips across the island in our hire car. Driving is a doddle: you stick to the left, a legacy from the British Empire days.
Paphos isn’t pretty, but Old Paphos is. We eyed up the trainers in the very trendy boutique Solemates, picked up a woven basket in local arts and crafts artisans shop the Place and had an excellent moussaka at Laona, a little taverna with a daily changing Cypriot menu, before being stung for £16 in the market buying a very pretty white woven dress that Hope was convinced made her look like a Greek princess.
Nearby, adjoining Nea Paphos, is the Tombs of the Kings, a necropolis dating from the 4th century BC to AD300. It was heavily influenced by the Egyptian practice of burning the dead in tombs that resembled houses — which makes it a lot more fun to visit than your standard cemetery. The tombs (which weren’t for kings but nobles) are a series of cool subterranean chambers cut into sea-facing rock, barely visible at eye level, so each one seems to pop out beneath your feet from nowhere. Health and safety appeared to have been denied entry, so the children treated it as a playground, sliding down the well-worn steps, clambering into the tombs, hiding in the niches where bodies were stored. Again, who knew dust and rocks would be such a hit?
We’d planned a half-day boat trip on the north coast near Latchi but it was cancelled (on the inexplicable grounds of “weather”) so we persuaded Isaac that “dolphin day” had been upgraded to become “monastery day”. There are more than 65 of these in Cyprus. The monks knew how to pick their spots: they come with the best views in Cyprus. The best we found was Agios Neophytos, up in the hills above Paphos, surrounded by pine trees. It was here that a 12th-century monk who was really into asceticism retreated, finding a natural cave that he further carved out to make a hermit cell, small chapel and eventual tomb, all of which were the perfect miniature size for our children to play bedtime. There are now six monks (and approximately 31 feral cats) living here, in a newer stone monastery, not the cave. We found one monk wafting around in black robes and beard in the gold-heavy chapel. “Are you a ghost?” Isaac asked. He just nodded sagely.
The prospect of visiting an olive oil mill was even less enticing. “I hate olives,” she retorted. Again, expectations were low. But, guided by Harris, a Pissouri local, we drove along through pomegranate groves and fields of olive trees to Xantris Bros olive oil mill, where the smell of tapenade was unmissable. Soon the children were armed with rakes and scraping olives from trees into a bucket which were then fed up a conveyor belt to begin the process of being cleaned, squelched, juiced and poured out as liquid gold. Many locals have little groves and this is where they bring their olives, explained Harris, as men in jeans and plaid shirts arrived in pick-up trucks laden with green olives still attached to their leaves. If they sell it to the mill, the going rate is £4.50 per litre. Production is low, price is up, Harris told us, as we sat at some plastic tables outside and lathered some onto toasted bread with oregano. It was excellent: fresh, fruity, bitter. The children looked unsure, until Harris liberally sprinkled theirs with sugar, at which point they were thrilled. “This is what our children are weaned on,” he told us. Lucky them.
You could easily spend a week sticking to the coast, but our best day trip was when we drove 40 miles to the Troodos mountains, the range that props up the centre of the island and is ripe with trails, wineries and stone villages. Millomeris waterfall, where we watched water crash down 15m, got a big tick and the award for most friendly cat; there was less enthusiasm for the savagely bendy mountain roads that led to Kykkos Monastery but, again, it came with a knockout view towards over the tree-clad mountains, a very much not low-key gold chapel and more numinous ghosts/monks.
At Omodos, one of the prettiest of the Troodos villages at the base of the mountains, we picked our way past shops selling embroidery and dried fruit and nuts, through tight, paved streets to a tremendous lunch of mushroom orzo with melted halloumi and tender, yoghurt-marinated chicken kebabs with fluffy, oily pittas at Katoi.
At the end of Omodos’s square is the Holy Cross Monastery, the oldest in Cyprus, with a grey-stoned basilica in its centre. Which is where the next big question came. “Is that Jesus?” Hope asked, pointing to a picture. Yes, I confirmed. “Who would win, Jesus or the other one that sounds like him … Zeus?
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here to read the article in The Times.