We had such a good time at Kourion that we decided to squeeze in a trip to Paphos before leaving town. The archaeological site, funnily enough called Nea Pafos (= New Paphos), is a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its mosaics. Mosaic is the process of using small coloured stones (tiles, shells, etc.) to form pictorial representations. The idea dates back to Mesopotamia, and Greeks made them too. But the majority of the examples we have from the classical world date to the Roman period and thereafter. (We also saw some gorgeous examples of Istanbul mosaics.) Many mosaics are floor decorations (more likely to be preserved than walls); think of them as analogous to a carpet. Only less nice to walk on in bare feet in the winter. We love a good mosaic, so we rented a car and off we went!
The drive was very easy and John kept to his side of the road with no trouble at all. (Remember, they drive on the left here.) There have been ongoing public strikes in Cyprus and we discovered on arrival that the site was only open for a few hours that day. So we were remarkably efficient, toodling around to visit everything. It’s a bigger site than Kourion, but the views are not as spectacular. Which is not to say that the views were bad – not at all!
And these were some spectacular mosaics! In our experience the subject matter falls into three basic categories: mythological, animal/vegetal, and geometric or figural. Paphos is rich in all three, but typically the mythological ones get all the attention. Lots of our favourite doomed heroines feature are here, including Scylla and Daphne and Phaedra and Thisbe. But there are also some very impressive animals, and even the geometrical figures, which don’t usually do it for us, were stunning. Rather than describe them, we thought we’d give you a generous selection from the photos we took.
Paphos is also conveniently located to Aphrodite’s Rock and the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, and because of the strikes we had to hurry there from Paphos. Still, we could have stayed here all day!
