Two Days in Paphos, Cyprus
Known for archeological sites and world-class wine, Paphos offers a more adventurous side compared to beach heaven Larnaca.
Logistics:
In Cyprus, there are two major tourist cities and all travel blogs tend to recommend to stay in either city as they have the airports. Paphos is no different! There are plenty of hotels, AirBnBs, and luxury all inclusive resorts.
By Public Transportation
From the airport, there is a great cheap bus to reach city center. For only 1.5, Bus 612 takes less than 30 minutes to reach city center. Times can be a little sporadic so do check the website here.
By Private Hire
However, if you want to really explore the island or perhaps go to the other side, I highly recommend renting a car. Known for the bright red license plate tags for rentals, there are plenty of options here. Because we wanted to go to Larnaca, we rented at the last minute and found a fantastic deal with Budget for 7 days for only 57E! And the car was an automatic!
Driving in Cyprus wasn’t as terrible as I was expecting. While the roads can be a little narrow in the cities, the highways and normal roads are perfectly fine. However, beware American drivers, they drive on the left similar to the UK! Since we are use to this style, it wasn’t an issue but easily could have been!
Lodging
Because we visited for 2 days, we wanted a close, central hotel and found a perfect place at Dionysos Central Hotel. While MF mostly chose this hotel because it offered a pool, it also was in the middle of the tourist area. The hotel also included a free okay continetenal breakfast. Our room was decent, with really great AC, but felt a little dated. Either way, at times it felt that we had the entire hotel to ourselves which was really nice!
Travel Tip: I relied on booking.com because most hotels are listed on this site. Plus, it offers better cancellation and good discounts.
Food & Drinks
In Cyprus, we relied on a handy blog called Fork and Foot for most of our Cyprus research, especially in food and drink! For Paphos, because we were really only here two days so our food and drink choices were limited. While I certainly did our research, some of the restaurants weren’t nearby when we were hungry or close. However, we did find a tasty Cypriot restaurant off the beaten path!
Estia Greek Restaurant: Situated off the beaten path, Estia is a family run restaurant specializing in Greek and Cypriot food. Offering the famous Cypriot mezes, they also serve terrific normal food. On our first night, we split grilled halloumi drizzled with balsamic vinegar, a big plate of vegetables, and a tasty chicken kebab. Thankfully, we split because they gave us huge portions! On our final night before our flight, we again went but declined to split our meal. It was a “poor” choice because our portions were huge! I had the pork kebab while MF had her last moussaka. The food is really tasty and cheap!
Oniro By the Sea: Sadly, we did not get to go to this restaurant that is nearby a famous beached wreck. Please note they are closed on Mondays!
Suite 48: While good-ish reviews for their food, Suite 48 is especially known for great sunsets!
Click here for our Cyprus Google map pinsfor all of our hard research of the top food and drink spots!
Activities
- Tomb of Kings: The site of possible ancient kings (or perhaps very, very rich people!), the large necropolis lies 2km north of Paphos. While a UNESCO World Heritage Site, we found the site a little underwhelming. Thank goodness it only costs €5! Be prepared to go early to beat the heat (and get it over with!)
- Archeological Museum: Kato Pafos Archaeological Park includes sites and monuments from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages, while most date from the Roman period. Our great Tomb of Kings experience most likely led to us skipping this - plus we had already seen a lot on our previous stops! Costs only €3.9.
- Coral Bay: One of the most popular beaches located 20 minutes north of Paphos. The beach has plenty of beach chairs, beach activities, and great views!
- Lara Bay: More secluded than other beaches, Lara beach requires careful driving as there is no road.
- Edro III Shipwreck: With the beached ship in view, the shipwreck is worth a photo stop! Combine it with a great meal at Oniro by the Sea for a terrific outing!
- Wine! There are loads of family owned wineries in Paphos. There are even whole day tours if that is what suits you.
- Aphrodites’ Rock: Located 20 minutes south of Paphos, this popular rock is great for photos and sunbathing!
- Sunsets: As Paphos sits on the west, the sunsets can be remarkable. Don’t miss on them as they are not available in Larnaca - something we realized very quickly!
Fixed Costs:
- Taxi from Airport: €30
- Dionysos Central: €133 for 2 nights
- 7 Day rental car: €57
- Flight from Crete: €60
- Sunburn: Free
Arrival in COVID Times
Unlike other countries, Cyprus requires either a negative PCR Covid test within 72 hours on arrival or one has to take a 60E Covid test on arrival and then quarantine until you have the results. Because we wanted to hit the ground running and I thought the second (cheaper) option was only for residents, we had a relatively simple arrival!
Once we exited the aircraft, we were shepherded into two groups: those who did have a negative test and those who did not have a test. Because we had our results, we had our expensive piece of paper read on our phone and immediately went through the exit!
Pool Time at Dionysos Central
Because our flight didn’t arrive until 1am, we were quite tired. Once we ate our free hotel breakfast, we decided we would go to a beach… until we realized there were no real beaches within walking distances! Rather than public beaches, most hotels have their own space and then have giant concrete slabs from which one could swim in the water. Thus, we had no beach and we went to the pool!
Compared to the hot beach, we quite enjoyed the pool and the umbrella! While we didn’t have seaside views, we were fine without it! In hindsight, we should have rented our car for the entire stay so we could have explored nearby beaches.
Exploring Paphos
Once the sun was beginning to set, we had a lovely walk along the harbor. Because Paphos is on the western side of Cyprus, the sunsets are quite spectacular here! The harbor is small, but there are good views near the fortress. While it is very touristy, the boardwalk is a very nice walk. It made me want to run and exercise! However, we preferred dinner instead so we went to Estia instead!
Tomb of Kings
Because of Paphos’ reputation as a big archeological site, we went to the famous Tomb of Kings. As we entered, we immediately saw huge tombs and were excited to see the rest of the complex. However, as we walked through the desert, we realized there were just rocks…
Sadly, there were no other explanations alongside the tombs/rocks. Everything felt very old, we just wish we knew what we were looking at!
Travel Tip: Head there early because there is no break from the sun!
Coral Bay
Located 20 minutes north of Paphos, Coral Bay is popular for the all inclusive resorts and a big party beach spot. However, in COVID times, the beach was hardly busy! Because we were only there for 2-3 hours, we decided to lie on the beach instead of renting beach chairs and umbrellas.
Boy, it was hot! But, the water is much warmer than Greece! The warm water made the beach breaks much more bearable and we enjoyed staying in the water more than lying on the beach!
Coral Bay
Travel Tip: Beach chairs and umbrellas are really cheap in Cyprus at 7.5, which is half the cost compared to Greece!
The UnChartered Summary
Paphos is the land of archeological and wine, but we did not get to try much of either! While we may have been burnt out of archeological sites in Crete, the wine was too far away to visit and we preferred to save our money. Plus, Cypriot wine is extremely cheap in the shops!
- Tomb of Kings is very overrated, in our opinion. Initially, I thought we would spend 45 min to an hour there. I wanted to leave within 30 minutes.
- Paphos was a little underwhelming, at least to our very high expectations dating back to our COVID cancelled trip in March.
- Rent a car from the beginning because we would have been able to explore outside Paphos, where the true beauty lies!