Last Updated on 21 April 2022 by Colette
At the start of this month, Dave and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary – one we had been determined to do something special for after two years of cancelled plans and disappointments. When our long planned for trip to New York for our 40th birthdays was cancelled, we turned our thoughts to our tenth wedding anniversary on the basis that “everything would be back to normal by then” – we talked about a proper honeymoon-esque trip to the Maldives or something similar. However, with foreign travel still fraught with potential stress; Do we test or don’t we test? Will we get Covid and have to cancel? What happens if we get ill while we are away? What if one of the kids is poorly and we can’t go? . . . I wasn’t keen to book a trip abroad. We narrowed our horizons and eventually settled on a few child-free days in Cambridge in a fairly luxe hotel – we talked about long lazy brunches, sight-seeing and afternoons drinking cocktails.
And then, when it came to booking the trip, we started to question whether we should look to go abroad after all, whether perhaps this was our chance to feel the sun on our faces for a few days. As we started to price options up, a short holiday to Cyprus ended up coming out at around the same price as a four night trip to Cambridge . . . It started to feel like a bit of a no brainer. And yet I was still anxious – all the reasons why I hadn’t wanted to book a foreign trip were still there niggling away at me. In the end we decided to just book it on the basis that if anything went wrong and we were prevented from travelling to Cyprus, we’d just go to Cambridge instead.
Now I’m not one for last minute holiday bookings – I’m not one for last minute anything if I’m honest – I like a plan. I like to know what’s going on and and I like to feel prepared. Deciding to book a trip to Cyprus just seven days before we were due to fly felt bold. I didn’t feel able to look forward to the trip as I didn’t really believe it would happen – and I resisted packing right up until Sunday afternoon!
Flying from Manchester Airport
We all know that Manchester Airport seem to have lost the plot a bit recently with excessively long queues to get through security and people missing flights thanks to poor organisation and a lack of trained staff. Luckily we had been able to book Fast Track security for our flight (and I now wouldn’t fly without this – it is absolutely worth the extra money) so we had made our way through baggage drop off and security within 45 minutes of setting foot in Manchester Airport.
The additional stress caused by turning up at the airport to find easyJet had overbooked the flight and put me on standby is quite literally a whole other post in itself.
Once through security, things felt fairly manic with long queues for food and not a lot of space to sit. We were lucky to get a table at Giraffe after a bit of a wait but we found there was quite a lot of stuff unavailable on the menu and they closed the restaurant to new customers shortly after we’d sat down.
Having eaten a fairly average meal at Giraffe, we picked up supplies from Boots (sun-cream and paracetamol) and Pret (sandwiches and that delicious lemon cheesecake that they do). This turned out to be a very smart move as EasyJet were decidedly lacking in refreshment options on board!
Arriving in Paphos, Cyprus
Arriving in Paphos was fairly painless. We were glad we had decided to book a private transfer – it really wasn’t all that much more expensive and, after all the stress of the flight, the last thing we needed was to spend an hour driving around Paphos and dropping other people off at their hotels. Luckily our transfer was waiting for us on arrival and took us straight to the hotel with no fuss whatsoever.
Avlida Hotel
The Avlida Hotel in Paphos is in a bit of a funny location, it’s neither down near the harbour nor up in the town. A taxi to either place cost around 10 euros each way so we probably spent a good 60 euros on taxis during our stay. The hotel itself is within walking distance of a lovely little beach and there are some restaurants nearby (we recommend Hickory which is just down past Lidl). We actually only went to the beach once as it was too windy the rest of the time. We also walked down to the harbour one morning – this took us about half an hour but was a steady downhill so there was no way I was walking back up again!
The Avlida hotel is a pretty big hotel with a large dining room, a comfortable bar area and two swimming pools (neither are massive but they serve their purpose). We had only booked bed & breakfast but you can book all inclusive at the Avlida – in all honesty we were glad we hadn’t as the bar wasn’t great and breakfast was pretty basic. I think all inclusive is great if you’re travelling with kids but when it’s just Dave and I, we want to be able to go out and explore – which I think you’re just generally less inclined to do when you know all your food and drinks are covered back at the hotel.
The hotel was clean and the beds were comfortable. The shower was absolutely dreadful and I quickly gave up any hope of washing my hair properly throughout our stay – the toilet cistern was also extremely slow to refil which might seem like an odd gripe but if you’d used the toilet just before bed, you ended up lying there listening to a slow trickle as it refilled for what felt like forever.
It’s worth mentioning that the Avlida’s idea of a “lateral sea view” (which we paid extra for incidentally), is leaning off your balcony and being able to see the sea off to one side – I wouldn’t bother spending the extra on that again – we spent very little time sat on our balcony (though perhaps if the view had been better we might have done!).
One thing we really appreciated was that even though it was quite windy during parts of our stay, the hotel pool was well sheltered and acted as a right little suntrap so on a few occasions we had no idea about the wind until we stepped outside the front door of the hotel in search of lunch. We found there were plenty of sunbeds and never struggled to find somewhere to lie – but of course we were there just at the start of the Easter holidays so I imagine this would be a very different ball game later in the season!
What we did in Phapos for four days
We arrived in Paphos fairly late on Monday evening – we basically had just enough time to squeeze in a drink at the hotel bar before it closed. With Cyprus being two hours ahead of us, we ended up having what felt like quite an early night!
Spent a morning on the beach
Venus Beach is about ten minutes walk from the hotel, it’s not a particularly challenging walk but you’re not going to just keep popping back up to the hotel either. We spent a few hours on the beach reading, dipping our toes in the sea and generally just trying to get our heads around the fact that we were actually on holiday! There was an ice cream van next to the beach and a small shower hut.
At lunch at Hickory Restaurant (several times)
Once we’d had enough time on the beach, and Dave was starting to feel hungry, we popped up onto the main road and decided to try Hickory for lunch. We liked Hickory so much that we actually ended up eating there three times during the course of our stay. The platter was my favourite, Dave loved the club sandwich – he was also a big fan of the fact they had Guinness on tap! Whilst you can sit outside on the terrace at the front, we found this to be quite noisy with passing traffic and preferred to sit in the bar area at the back over looking the pool.
Ate dinner at Gourmet Taverna
Gourmet Taverna is down towards the harbour, just set up back from the water but close enough that you can still see the sea. Dave picked it out as the restaurant for our anniversary dinner. The food was nice enough (though the cocktails were dubious – don’t bother with the caipirinha) and if you sit outside its a great spot for people watching. It can get a bit cool once the sun has gone in so definitely make sure you’ve got an extra layer.
Visited the old town
We got a taxi up into Paphos old town for dinner and drinks one night – it’s a funny little place with a square that has clearly had a lot of money spent on it and some beautifully lit old buildings that are worth a look at – from what I’ve read, one of them was the old town hall and one a police station I think but goodness knows what the others were.
We had dinner at Pallia Iletriki – which was a very random little restaurant tucked away in a courtyard – even the taxi driver didn’t know it was there! We also had drinks at Noir Tapas & Bar – again, fairly dubious cocktails which seemed to be a theme for the week but a nice place to sit and watch the world go by (they also have the fanciest toilets!).
Becauase it was downhill, we decided to walk back to Avlida from the town rather than drop another 10 euros on a taxi – it didn’t take took long (about 20 minutes I think) but Google took us down a very dusty old track with no street lighting so I can’t say it felt like the safest decision we’d ever made
Over faced ourselves with lunch at Pingouino
Pingouino is back down in the harbour area, and in fact pretty much next door to Gourmet Taverna. We went there on recommendation from my Mum & Dad who had actually been to Paphos last autumn. We ordered a meat platter, thinking this was what Dad had recommended, but actually turned out to be the wrong thing. Regardless, it was a very generous platter of cooked meats – we both ended up feeling quite over faced with it – I’m not sure anyone needs that much cooked meat for lunch on holiday! Dad said after that he thinks their platter was cheese and meat but we hadn’t seen that on the menu.
Enjoyed traditional Meze at The Windmill
This was another of Dad’s recommendations and I think probably felt like the most traditionally Greek place that we ate all week – The Windmill has been family run since the late 70s and had such a lovely atmosphere. We ordered Meze – which was brought to the table in phases. Dave’s face when he thought we basically just ordered a load of dip for dinner was hilarious – luckily that wasn’t the case and we had lots of delicious bits and pieces to try!
Drank amazing cocktails at Antasia Beach Club
Antasia Beach Club was easily my favourite place of the week – and one we stumbled across quite by accident. Dave had left me sat on the seafront enjoying the view whilst he went for a wander, he spotted Antasia Beach Club which is sat right on the beach and decided it looked like somewhere we ought to try that night. He wasn’t wrong – the setting was stunning (and would have been all the more beautiful had the clouds and sandstorm not hidden the sunset). The service was spot on and the cocktails were by far the best (and most expensive) drinks we’d had all week – we were only sorry we’d discovered Antasia on our last night rather than our first!
Lazed by the pool
The rest of our time in Paphos was basically spent by the pool at Avlida – I smashed my way through four books in the four days we were away and we both just very much appreciated the opportunity to lie in the sunshine and do absolute nothing. As I’ve mentioned, the pool area at Avlida was something of a suntrap and we benefited for unseasonably good weather (several degrees higher than would be normal for early April). We dipped our toes in the pool once or twice but didn’t feel the need to get in – it was freezing!
All in we had a really lovely few days in Paphos and couldn’t be more grateful to my Mum for coming to look after the kids so that we could have that child free time. I can’t say that Paphos stole my heart in anyway, it’s not somewhere I particularly feel the need to return to, but it absolutely served its purpose in terms of sunshine and relaxation!
Where to next?
Of course, whilst Dave and I were away, we discussed when and where our next adventure should be – having not left the country for the best part of three years, we’ve definitely rediscovered that itch now! I’d love to get back to France and we’d all love a return trip to Tenerife, if only to go to Siam Park! However, our financial priorities lie elsewhere this year so I think we’re going to concentrate on our camping trip to Norfolk in the summer holidays and set our sights on a foreign adventure with the kids next year!
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