Day 3 in Cyprus: Driving around the Troodos Mountains

Putting far too much faith in Google Maps, I left my hotel in Kakopetria a little after eight and, after making a quick stop to check the pressure in my tyres, arrived at the Church of Panagia tou Araka at nine o’clock. That was when the church was supposed to open according to Google but there was a sign outside saying that the opening time was actually ten. I probably should have expected this, as Google Maps has the correct opening times for several other churches in the area, including the lunch break between one and two in the afternoon.

I spent the hour walking around the neighbourhood and taking pictures of the mountains. Just a few paces up the road from the church is a monument to EOKA fighters but I have not found much information about it in English. Eventually, my waiting was cut slightly short by the early arrival of the priest in a white sedan, which he parked not in the parking lot but on the inside of the bend in the road. I slipped into the church as the priest was lighting the candles and hoisting them up using strings fastened behind the altar. He had brought three or four loaves of bread with big stamps, drilling a candle into the centre of one of them. This bread is called is used for the eucharist and is called a prosphora.

The Church of Panagia tou Araka is one of ten UNESCO-listed religious buildings in the Troodos Mountains famous for their Byzantine and post-Byzantine murals. These paintings cover every inch of the churches and depict well-known Christian scenes like the birth of Jesus Christ, the raising of Lazarus, the dormition of Mary, and so on. I spent the whole day driving up and down the winding mountain roads from church to church: Panagia of Asinou, the Virgin Mary of Podithou, Saint Nicholas of the Roof, the Archangel Michael, and finally the Monastery of Saint John Lampadistes.

My favourite church was probably Panagia of Asinou with its beautiful round ceiling, but part of my enjoyment stemmed from arriving before the busloads of Spanish and Italian tourists which flocked some of the other churches. The Church of the Archangel Michael was also nice in this regard, as it lay a bit out of the way and had very few parking spaces nearby. And of course, the larger-than-life painting of the Archangel Michael was spectacular.

Nearing the Monastery of Saint John Lampadistes, I ran into a bit of a problem: all traffic was being directed down one-way roads to the dedicated parking spaces, and there was no easy way to drive back again to Moutoullas; the signs away from the parking spaces all pointed in the direction of Nicosia. I was particularly upset by this as I had missed the Church of Panagia tou Moutoulla, which I drove past at one o’clock in search of food. At least the food at Kalopanayiotis was interesting. I tried tarhana soup – a thick and slightly tangy mixture of bulgur and sour milk – as well as loukoumades, which are fried dough balls often paired with syrup.

My last stop of the day was the Holy Monastery of the Virgin Mary of Kykkos, and although I spent only a very short amount of time there for fear of having to drive down the mountain in the dark, the drive was well worth the beautiful mountain views. I had of course pulled over to take a few shots before that, but only on this last leg of the journey did the views properly open up and offer broad panoramas of the Troodos range with glimpses of the sea in the background. I watched in awe as the sun slowly set in the waves, its last drop leaving behind a pink sky as I finally made it out of the mountains after more than an hour driving down the twisty road and dodging fallen rocks. I spent the night in Paphos.