CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 320 km round trip from Nicosia - roughly 6 h 17 in the saddle. On the way it passes Church of Panayia, Church of Archangelos Michael, Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village and Kato Paphos necropolis. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe, and you feel it as soon as you reach the old city. A great ring of Venetian walls, built in the 1560s in the shape of a star with eleven bastions, encloses the centre, and across the middle runs the Green Line, the buffer zone created after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Barbed wire, sandbags and shuttered buildings mark the line in places, and a few crossing points allow pedestrians to pass between the two halves of the city, which is a strangely routine business, with passport checks and a walk down a pedestrian street.
Read the complete Nicosia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nicosia is where the day begins. Next is Church of Panayia.
The Troodos mountains rise in the middle of Cyprus, covered in black pine, oak and cedar, with the summit of Mount Olympus at 1,952 metres, which gets snow in winter and has a small ski area. Hidden in the villages of the range are ten small churches that UNESCO listed in 2001, because their walls hold one of the finest collections of Byzantine and post-Byzantine wall paintings in the world, dating from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. The label does not say which church this is, and there are several dedicated to Panayia, the Virgin, so I will describe the group, which is what makes any one of them special.
Read the complete Church of Panayia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of Panayia comes up about 76 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church of Archangelos Michael.
From the outside, the church of the Archangel Michael at Pedoulas looks like a barn, with a steep wooden roof covered in flat tiles coming almost to the ground. Inside, its walls are covered with frescoes painted in 1474 by a local artist named Minas, with bright colours and lively scenes from the life of Christ and the saints, and the archangel himself presiding over the door. It is one of the painted churches in the Troodos region listed by UNESCO, a group of small Byzantine churches and monasteries whose humble exteriors hide some of the richest interiors in the Eastern Christian world.
Read the complete Church of Archangelos Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of Archangelos Michael. Next is Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village.
According to the Greeks, Aphrodite rose from the sea foam off the coast of Cyprus, and the place where she came ashore was near Paphos. The rock of Petra tou Romiou, a sea stack a few kilometres east of Kouklia, is the traditional spot, and the sanctuary on the hill above, at Palaepaphos, was one of the most important shrines of the ancient world. People came on pilgrimage from across the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to late antiquity, and the cult went back to a Near Eastern fertility goddess long before the Greeks arrived, with the goddess worshipped in the form of a cone-shaped black stone.
Read the complete Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village, about halfway. Next is Kato Paphos necropolis.
The so-called Tombs of the Kings lie on the sea edge of Paphos, in the western corner of Cyprus, and the name is a bit of romance, because nobody royal was ever proven to be buried here. In fact the rock-cut tombs date to the Hellenistic and Roman periods, roughly the fourth century BC onward, and they were used by the high officials and wealthy citizens of Nea Paphos, the old capital of the island under the Ptolemies. The tombs are carved into the soft limestone, some with Doric columns around a central open court, so that you walk down a flight of steps into what looks like a sunken Greek house with a burial chamber on each side.
Read the complete Kato Paphos necropolis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kato Paphos necropolis sits at 151 km, about halfway. Next is back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village comes up about 181 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Church of Archangelos Michael.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of Archangelos Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 240 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Church of Archangelos Michael. Next is back through Church of Panayia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of Panayia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of Panayia, late in the day. Next is Nicosia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nicosia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 320 km.
Nicosia → Church of Panayia is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church of Archangelos Michael → Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village → Kato Paphos necropolis is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kato Paphos necropolis → back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village → back through Church of Archangelos Michael is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of Panayia → Nicosia is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.