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.
324 km from Kofínou to Kofínou, about 6 h 49 of riding. On the way it passes Painted Churches in the Troodos Region, Ayios Ionannis, Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village and back through Ayios Ionannis. The line favours views over speed.
Long before the Greeks, the Phoenicians or the Romans arrived in Cyprus, people lived on a hillside above the Maroni river in the southern part of the island, in round stone houses with flat roofs, packed close together inside a defensive wall. Choirokoitia is a Neolithic settlement dating back to around the seventh millennium BC, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the eastern Mediterranean. The inhabitants farmed, herded animals and buried their dead under the floors of their houses. Several of the round houses have been reconstructed near the entrance, giving a vivid sense of how they lived. The site received UNESCO recognition in 1998.
Read the complete Choirokoitia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Choirokoitia is where the day begins. Next is Painted Churches in the Troodos Region.
From the outside they look like barns: low stone buildings with steep pitched roofs of flat tiles, sometimes covered by a second wooden roof to keep off the snow. Inside, every surface glows with Byzantine and post-Byzantine frescoes. The painted churches of the Troodos mountains in Cyprus, nine of them inscribed in 1985 and a tenth added in 2001, form one of the richest collections of Byzantine painting anywhere.
Read the complete Painted Churches in the Troodos Region write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Painted Churches in the Troodos Region comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ayios Ionannis.
Ayios Ionannis here means the monastery of Saint John Lambadistis, at Kalopanagiotis, a village in the Marathasa valley on the northern side of the Troodos mountains. It is a strange and lovely building, three churches joined together under one big wooden roof, each added in a different century, so that stepping from one to the next is like walking through the history of Cypriot painting. Frescoes cover nearly every wall, from the Byzantine saints of the twelfth century to the more elaborate cycles of the fifteenth, in colours that glow in the dim light. It is one of the painted churches of the Troodos, listed by UNESCO in 1985.
Read the complete Ayios Ionannis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 100 km into the recorded legs you reach Ayios Ionannis. 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 back through Ayios Ionannis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ayios Ionannis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ayios Ionannis sits at 164 km, about halfway. Next is back through Painted Churches in the Troodos Region.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Painted Churches in the Troodos Region write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Painted Churches in the Troodos Region comes up about 279 km into the recorded legs. Next is Choirokoitia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Choirokoitia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Choirokoitia closes the day.
Choirokoitia → Painted Churches in the Troodos Region is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Painted Churches in the Troodos Region → Ayios Ionannis is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ayios Ionannis → Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village → back through Ayios Ionannis is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ayios Ionannis → back through Painted Churches in the Troodos Region is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Painted Churches in the Troodos Region → Choirokoitia is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.