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 163 km round trip from Paphos - roughly 3 h 30 in the saddle. It goes by way of Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village, Church of Archangelos Michael and back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The ride that brings you here starts in Paphos but belongs, for a while, to Aphrodite. Kouklia, a village on the southwest coast of Cyprus, sits on the site of Palaepaphos, the old Paphos, where the goddess of love was worshipped for well over a thousand years before the Romans arrived. Ancient writers placed her birth in the sea off this coast, and a rock offshore near here is still called Aphrodite's Rock. The sanctuary was a pilgrimage centre across the Mediterranean, and pilgrims travelled from Greece, Egypt and Phoenicia to reach it.
Read the complete Paphos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paphos is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 22 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 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of Archangelos Michael. 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, late in the day. Next is Paphos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paphos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Paphos. That is the ride.
Paphos → Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village → Church of Archangelos Michael is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of Archangelos Michael → back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Aphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village → Paphos is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.