Paphos

Paphos is where Aphrodite came ashore — a rock down the coast marks the spot, and the goddess of love has been the town's business ever since. Under Rome it was the capital of the island, and the governors' villas by the harbour kept the proof: floors of mosaic, Dionysus and Theseus and the four seasons, that a farmer's plough turned up in 1962 and that the whole town is now built around. Beyond them, the Tombs of the Kings, cut into the rock in the fourth century BC for nobles who were not kings; a small castle at the harbour mouth; the upper town of Ktima on its ridge with its market and cafés; and, along the coast in either direction, the banana groves, the beaches, the turtle sands of Lara and the wild Akamas peninsula.

The traveller gives the archaeological park a morning, early, when the mosaics have their colours and not their glare; walks the harbour for the castle and a fish lunch under the pelicans; goes north to the Tombs of the Kings and down their staircases into the rock; climbs to Ktima for the market and a coffee that is not on the seafront; drives east along the coast to Petra tou Romiou for the rock and, if the light is right, the foam; drives west to Coral Bay, and beyond it, on a dirt road, to Lara and Akamas; and, with a day to spare, goes up into the Troodos for the painted monasteries and the cold air.

The Guide's honesty: Kato Paphos, the lower town by the sea, is a resort — hotels, English breakfasts, a promenade — and Ktima, above, is where the Cypriots live: sleep where you like, but eat up the hill at least once; the mosaics are outdoors under sheds and July at noon is an oven — go at opening —; the beaches near town are modest, and the good sand is at Coral Bay and Lara, twenty minutes away; the rock of Aphrodite is a photograph and a swim, not an afternoon; a car is nearly essential and Cyprus drives on the left; and the island is divided — Paphos is in the Republic, and the north is another postal.