Guides ·Day trips

Getting there from your coastal base

From Limassol, Paphos is 68 km west on the A6 motorway, about 55 minutes at the 100 km/h limit. Intercity Buses run the route roughly hourly from Limassol's Old Port terminal to Paphos Karavella station, €4 one way or €7 return, taking 70 to 80 minutes. From Larnaca it is 140 km and around 1 hour 45 minutes by car, or a coach change in Limassol. From Ayia Napa, budget three hours each way, which makes Paphos a stretch rather than a day trip.

If you are already staying in Paphos, ignore all of that and treat this as a walking day, because everything except Coral Bay is within 3 km of the harbour. Drivers should aim for the pay-and-display car parks on Apostolou Pavlou Avenue or beside the Archaeological Park, around €2 for two hours and free after 19:00 in most zones. The old town, Ktima, is up the hill from Kato Paphos, a stiff 20-minute walk or a €1.50 ride on the OSYPA 610 or 611.

The Archaeological Park and its Roman mosaics

The Paphos Archaeological Park at Nea Paphos is the reason to come. Entry is €4.50, gates open at 08:15 and close 17:15 from November to March, 19:30 in high summer. The Houses of Dionysos, Theseus, Aion and Orpheus hold second- to fourth-century mosaic floors that are among the best preserved anywhere in the Roman Mediterranean, all under modern canopies. Add the Odeon, still used for summer concerts, the Saranta Kolones crusader castle ruins and the Asklepieion. Two hours minimum, three if you read the panels.

There is almost no shade between the buildings and the ground is bright limestone, so go early or late in summer and carry water; there is one small kiosk near the entrance. Guided tours are sold at the gate and by Paphos operators from €25 a head, or €120 to €180 for a private two-hour guide. If you are coming with children, the Theseus mosaic with its Minotaur roundel and the Labours of Herakles panel in the House of Theseus tend to hold attention better than the geometric floors.

Tombs of the Kings and the coastal path

Two kilometres north along the seafront, the Tombs of the Kings is a Hellenistic and Roman necropolis cut straight into the coastal rock, entry €2.50, same seasonal hours. No kings were buried here, only Ptolemaic officials, but the peristyle courtyards with Doric columns hewn from living stone are extraordinary and you can climb down into most of them. Give it an hour. The sea crashes against the low cliff right behind the tombs, and late afternoon light in the courtyards is the photograph worth waiting for.

Between the two sites runs the Kato Paphos coastal path, a free paved walkway of about 3 km with benches, lighting and swimming ladders down to the rock shelves. It links the harbour, the park boundary, the Municipal Beach and the Tombs, and it is the single easiest way to structure the day without a car. Along the way, Agia Kyriaki Chrysopolitissa church and St Paul's Pillar, where tradition holds the apostle was flogged, sit in a free archaeological compound off Pafias Afroditis Street.

The harbour, the fort and lunch

Paphos Harbour is small, working and lined with tavernas. The medieval fort at the end of the mole was rebuilt by the Ottomans in 1592 on Lusignan foundations; entry is €2.50 and the roof gives the best overview of Nea Paphos. Lunch on the harbour costs €18 to €28 a head: grilled halloumi €7, a Greek salad €9, a whole grilled sea bream €22 to €26. It is not the cheapest food in town but you are paying for the water at your feet.

For better value, walk up to Ktima and eat around the Municipal Market and Makariou Avenue, where a souvlaki wrap is €4 to €5 and a full meat meze €22. The Ottoman-era market building on Agoras Street has been restored and sells lace, leather and dried fruit alongside vegetables. The Ethnographical Museum on Exo Vrisi Street, €3, and the Byzantine Museum, €2, are both small and quiet, and Ktima's grid of colonial-era stone buildings is far more atmospheric than the tourist strip below.

Beaches: Coral Bay, Lara and the Akamas edge

Coral Bay, 12 km north, is the best swimming beach within reach: a 600 m crescent of soft sand between two headlands, Blue Flag, lifeguarded April to October, with free parking and sunbed pairs at €10 to €12.50. The OSYPA 615 bus runs there from Kato Paphos harbour every 15 to 30 minutes, €1.50 single or €5 for the day. Just north, the Agios Georgios headland at Pegeia has a tiny harbour, a Byzantine basilica floor and sea caves you can scramble down to.

Beyond that the tarmac gives out and the Akamas begins. Lara Bay, the loggerhead and green turtle nesting beach, is reachable only on an unsealed track that virtually every rental agreement forbids; take a jeep safari at €55 to €70 instead, and note that the beach is closed to vehicles at night from June to September during nesting. Nearer to town, Faros Beach below the lighthouse and the rock shelves along the coastal path are free, uncrowded and fine for a quick swim between sites.

The drive home via Aphrodite's Rock

Heading back east, leave the A6 for the old B6 coast road and stop at Petra tou Romiou, 25 km from Paphos. There is a free car park, a café on the bluff and a pedestrian tunnel under the road to the pebble beach where, in legend, Aphrodite came ashore. Sunset here lands between 17:15 in December and 20:15 in late June, and the sea stacks silhouette cleanly. Bring water shoes if you plan to swim; the pebbles are large and the shelf drops fast.

Two other stops fit the same road. Palaipaphos at Kouklia, the sanctuary of Aphrodite that was the island's main cult site for over a thousand years, has a museum in a Lusignan manor house, entry €4.50. And Pissouri Bay, 20 minutes further east, has a long shingle beach with tavernas under the cliff and is a good final swim before Limassol. Total for the day: €14 to €18 in entries, €8 to €22 in transport, and one very full memory card.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask before they set off on this one.

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