Paphos
Paphos sits at the southwestern edge of Cyprus, where the Mediterranean meets limestone cliffs and the land holds more history than most places know what to do with. The myths came first — this is where Aphrodite was said to have risen from the sea foam — and then the Greeks, the Ptolemies, the Romans, the Arabs, the British, each leaving something behind in the rock or the soil.
What you find today is a coastal town built over and around one of the eastern Mediterranean's most significant archaeological landscapes. The mosaics alone — Roman-era floors depicting Dionysus, Theseus, Orpheus — are reason enough to come. UNESCO agreed in 1980, designating Nea Pafos a World Heritage Site. The excavations are still ongoing.
How Paphos came to be
Old Paphos was settled by Mycenaean Greeks and became the site of a celebrated temple to Aphrodite, drawing pilgrims from across the ancient world. The Cinyrad dynasty ruled there for centuries until Ptolemy I of Egypt ended their line in 294 BCE. A generation earlier, around 320 BC, the city's last Greek king, Nikokles, had already founded New Paphos closer to the coast — a city that would become the administrative capital of Cyprus under both Ptolemaic and Roman rule.
Rome's conquest in 58 BCE folded Cyprus into its empire, and it was to New Paphos that Saint Paul came around AD 47. Muslim raiders destroyed much of the city in 960 CE, and it did not begin to recover as a modern town until after the British arrived in 1878. Polish archaeological teams have been excavating the site systematically since 1965.
Who and what shaped it
People who shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
Summers are long, dry and genuinely hot — the archaeological park offers little shade, so early mornings matter in July and August. Spring (March to May) and autumn (October to November) are the most comfortable seasons for walking the sites at length.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.