Art And Culture in Paphos

Cultural trips out of Paphos are built as a movement deeper into time and deeper into the island. Antiquity lies closest: Kourion with a theatre cut into the slope above the sea, and the place where by myth Aphrodite rose from the waves. The drive takes about an hour and is usually combined with Lefkara, a village where lace famous since Venetian times is still sewn.

The second layer is Byzantine. In the Troodos mountains stand painted churches under wooden roofs, listed by UNESCO, and the Kykkos monastery keeps an icon said by tradition to have been painted by the evangelist Luke. The third layer is the most recent and the most uncomfortable: the dividing line. Full-day programmes run from Paphos to Kyrenia with the castle of Saint Hilarion and the abbey of Bellapais, and to Famagusta, where the ruins of ancient Salamis stand beside Varosha, a quarter sealed since 1974.

Practical notes. Paphos lies far from all of the above: an hour and a half to Troodos, about three and a half to the northern coast. Such trips start early and return after dark. A passport is needed for the north, and insurance on a car hired in the south does not apply there. Churches and monasteries require covered clothing, and photography inside is often forbidden.