Limassol; Friday, 26 January, 2024

When I’d visited Paphos in late 2022 I’d taken a day trip that included a stop at the ancient city of Kourion, but on that tour we stopped for less than an hour and only saw a small part of the large archaeological site, so my main aim for the day was to head over there. I’d double checked the bus company website and made sure I’d noted all my connections, spotting that I could get the bus from outside the hotel to the end of it’s route at My Mall, where one of the routes out to Kourion started from.

Or at least where it used to start from. Despite the website saying so, and the app, and the MoovIt app, it turns out that the local bus company discontinued the route three months earlier – just nobody updated anything. The problem was I arrived a few minutes after the timetable said a bus had left and so I had a 40 minute wait for the next one, which I was OK with. It was only after nearly an hours waiting that I finally managed to find a bus driver who was able to explain what had happened – and that my plan for later in the afternoon would also need amending as they’d also removed the bus route that used to serve Kolossi Castle.

So, at about the time I had hoped to be arriving at Kourion I was instead on a little hoppa bus weaving my way across suburban Limassol heading to the central bus station to pick up the bus that now starts from there out to Kourion. By the time I finally reached the archaeological park it was nearly 3 ½ hours since I’d left the hotel.

Thankfully, the closest part of the park to reach were the bits that I hadn’t seen on the previous trip so I was able to spend a couple of hours wandering around the extensive remains of the Roman Agora, Public Baths, a couple of ruined houses and one of the first Christian Basilicas on the island before heading back over towards the visitors centre to have a quick look around the two parts of the site I’d seen previously.

Having now actually seen all of the site I headed back down to the bus stop and caught the bus part of the way back into Limassol, hopping of at Kolossi to revisit the castle there. As with Kourion it was much nicer to be able to wander around the site at my own pace with virtually nobody else there, for most of the time I was the only person inside the castle.

In the original plan I would catch the half-hourly bus that started at the castle back into Limassol, but with that route withdrawn I had to walk the kilometre or so back through the back streets of Kolossi to the main road and pick up the bus back into town from there.

Back in Limassol I had a wander through the old town, mostly because the bus back to the hotel is the only one that doesn’t serve the bus station, sticking to the coast road instead, and finally made it back to the hotel to have a quick freshen up before heading down for dinner.

After dinner I did contemplate a quick swim, but I was feeling quite full so decided it would probably be best just to grab a drink and sit out on my balcony taking in the cool of the night before turning in.