Blogs from Paphos, Cyprus, Middle East

SEE TEXT IN ENGLISH BELOW 8 diciembre 2012 Pafos es sin lugar a dudas, uno de los lugares arqueológicos más interesantes de la isla, y posiblemente el más interesante. El día estaba lluvioso, fresco y ventoso. Después de desayunar frente al castillo de Limasol, tomé un minibus en la glorieta rumbo a Paphos. La autovía de Limasol a Pafos es bonita, pues circula siempre cerca del mar. A medio camino entre las dos ciudades deja unas decenas de metros por debajo la famosa playa de Petra tou Romiou, una playa que aparece en muchísimas postales. Según cuentan es en esta playa donde nació Afrodita, la diosa del amor, la lujuria, la sexualidad y la reproducción. Surgió después de que el titán Cronos cortara con una hoz adamantina los genitales de su padre Urano y los tirase. ... read more

Preparations As this has happened so fast, most of my friends and family don't realise the stress which came with finding the right host family. So I originally joined an aupair website, (aupair-world.net) which you just create a profile about yourself, your likes, dislikes and what you expect and are looking for and then you are able to search for families, the idea is to look at the information they have and if you like them email them. It works both ways as families search for matching aupairs, you can decline families and they can decline you, but it has go be right for both of you so I didn't get offended I would rather that than be lead on. Once you have a response or if a family has emailed you, you are able to ... read more

I am just going to write two blog entries about my trip to Cyprus. This one is about my week in Paphos with my lovely friend, Lorraine, and her lovely daughter, Roxanne. We actually didn't do a whole lot in Paphos, so I won't bore you with a day-to-day account. Paphos was not exactly what I expected. I think I expected it to be more like Greece. It looked sort of like Greece on the coast, but the architecture was just modern buildings and shops and Starbucks and McDonald's. There were no white, domed roofs or blue doors. There were loads of resorts housing loads of British tourists and restaurants catered heavily to the Brits. Nothing wrong with that I guess since so many Brits vacation there and own homes there, but I was a little ... read more

Another adventure starts, this time the Greek Islands without a car. We have a flight booked to Iraklion, Crete, tomorrow Sunday 15th May, 2011 and the general plan is to do some ferry hopping around the Islands, with no particular itinerary in mind other than where the next ferry takes us. We have visited a number of Islands over the years and obviously hope to add some new ones to the list.... read more

Setting the scene - October 2010 A quick update first, we have now been living in Pegeia (pronounced Peyia)since December, 2009. We had a heatwave over this summer and enjoyed several of our friends and family visiting for holidays from more Northerly climes. When we left the UK and took four months to drive over to Cyprus, the car was only one year old and did not require it's first (UK) MOT until 18 October, 2010. At which time, as we did not wish to register it in Cyprus, it would no longer have valid insurance. As the summer of 2010 rushed past Pat and I had a discussion and decided that our only sensible option was to drive the car back to England, sell it, fly back and purchase a car locally. This would then ... read more

The 24th September, 2009 was one year on, from when our journey started. What a wonderful year, with many and varied experiences. They say travel broadens the mind. I agreed with the sentiment before and even more so, now. We had decided to celebrate the day, by having a day out and visiting the monastery at Kykkos. Having looked at the map, we decided to go via Polis, not the most obvious route, but some of the roads in the mountains, we were not sure about. We set off just after nine, and headed North to Polis. The drive was uneventful and we headed East from Polis in the direction of Pafos forest. Our objectives, were to see Cedar valley, visit Kykkos monastery and find Archbishop Makarios’ tomb. The area is mountainous and the road is ... read more