Kids finished school, early in Germany, so on 13th June we all took a flight to Larnaca in Cyprus. Four hours on a RyanAir plane. Not the most comfortable experience, much like how sheep must feel being herded together into a confined space. So we left a coldish Düsseldorf for a much warmer Cyprus. Was like being in a hot air dryer when we got off the plane. Very hot and windy.
We had hired a car through Avis, and after a bit of searching around in the heat of the car park managed to find our fine new car. Except it wasn’t fine, or new. In fact it had to be the oldest, dirtiest, most crap car I’ve ever been in, yet alone hired. Headlights looked like they’d been sandblasted, windscreen wipers merely moved water around the windscreen when trying to clean it, and it struggled big time to go over 100km/h (62mph). But, after a 2 hour drive we did get to our villa in Paphos, and very nice it was too, own pool, well equipped, view of the sea only 200m away. Nice.
Hadn’t realised how English Cyprus was, expensive, but saw a Next and a Debenhams, fish and chip shops. England in the sun. Full of chavs I thought.
Anyway, first trip out to see the local sights was to the Tomb of Kings, about 10 minutes drive away. It looks pretty derelict, many of the tombs resemble no more than concrete bunkers, which they are sort of. 
But they are basically the final resting place of a group of aristocrats that lived and died in Paphos around 300BC. It is a World Cultural Heritage site. There is no official tour there, just a book and walk around.
Went to the beach one of the days; found a nice shady spot under a parasol, whilst the day after we took a short trip up the mountain to see the ‘Adonis Baths’. Not too sure what we were expecting, but we passed some goats crossing the road on the way,
and followed the windiest road you’ll ever drive along. Bumpy, steep, pivot holed and very dusty. But made it to this really exciting sign which must have meant we had arrived. 
But, despite the dodgy road and uninspiring sign it was actually very nice. 
So we spent a while there. A couple of very cold pools to swim in, nice and shaded and the place was surrounded by various statues, some with rather large ‘appendages’ which I did manage to get the names of eventually, thanks to Google.
Pottered around the villa for a few days, chilling by the pool. Had a few BBQ’s in the evening as eating out seemed quite expensive. But we did find a nice Mexican restaurant we liked and went there a couple of times. Not very ‘local’ though is it, mexican food? But have to say wasn’t that impressed by the local fare.
But seeing as there wasn’t a huge amount to do in Cyprus, except to relax, we did find another waterfall a couple of hours away with a nice trail to walk along a river. So decided that was worth a day trip. And it was nice. Good walk through the woods to a waterfall that I wasn’t too sure you could stand under. Water looked a bit deep. Nice and cool there though in the shade. 
Spent much of my time messing around with my camera, taking photos of basically anything. Took 422 in total narrowing it down to 37 by the time I’d finished. But, having said that, there were a lot of dragonfly’s around and managed to get a great shot of this red one. Probably got some fancy latin name. 
So we had a good week. Quite relaxing, hot but the pool was nice to cool down in. And we all got a little sun tanned. 
You can see all our Cyprus photos here
