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.
From Kyperoúnta it runs 194 km to Kyperoúnta; allow about 4 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Church of Archangelos Michael, Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village and back through Church of Archangelos Michael. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Cyprus has a church for every season, and the finest are hidden in the folds of the Troodos mountains. These small, plain stone chapels, with steep timber roofs that stretch over the older walls like a wide-brimmed hat to shed the winter snow, hide inside a world of colour: Byzantine frescoes, painted from the eleventh century to the sixteenth, of saints with huge dark eyes, scenes from the Gospels and the Virgin enthroned. A group of these painted churches in the Troodos region was listed as a World Heritage property in 1985. The Panayia, the Virgin, is the dedication of many of them, and the stop on this ride is among the foothills on the northern side of the range.
Read the complete Church of Panayia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of Panayia is where the day begins. 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.
Church of Archangelos Michael comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 96 km into the recorded legs you reach Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village. 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.
back through Church of Archangelos Michael, late in the day. Next is 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 at Church of Panayia. That is the ride.
Church of Panayia → Church of Archangelos Michael is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → back through Church of Archangelos Michael is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of Archangelos Michael → Church of Panayia is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.