Another port we've not visited before, and one that I had researched and knew exactly what we were going to do.
Paphos is a tender port. It has a lovely marina, but there is nowhere big enough for a ship to dock, so the bright yellow lifeboats are used to ferry passengers from the ship to land. The lifeboats are called tenders when this is happening, not lifeboats.
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| Spirit of Adventure out at Anchor. The tenders (or lifeboats) can be seen to the left, ferrying passengers back and forth into Paphos |
By the time we were ready to go ashore, they weren't many people left on the ship, so no queuing, and the sea was quite calm, so not much bobbing about as the tender made it's way to the pier.
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| Paphos Marina |
Once on land we headed straight for the entrance to the K€ato Paphos Archeological Site, A UNESCO World Heritage site
It's an amazing place, the roman ruins and mosaics are extraordinary, at only €4.50, it was excellent value.
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| I wonder if our floors will last 2300 years and a few earthquakes? |
There was also a castle, and catacombs.
But, as expected, it was hot. There are occasional shelters around the place, water vending machines and toilets, but the heat is relentless, and draining.
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| Cactuii loving the heat |
We loved the place and wanted to see as much as possible, but eventually, we had to go and cool down. We'd planned a visit to the beach on the other side of the park. All we had to do was find a way out! The issued map wasn't very helpful, because it didn't seem very accurate. But we eventually worked out there are turnstiles that let you out of the north west and east end of the site, and getting to the Lighthouse Beach from any one of these isn't too difficult.
Not necessarily the best beach in the world, but we were able to hire a couple of sun beds and a parasol for €7.50 (€2.50 for each item). The sea was full of vegitative (best word I could come up with) debris which seemed to be a dark brown weed that had was breaking down in swathes along the beach. But the water was cool, and once you got the past the brown bits, it was lovely to swim.
Really nice chips, a long cool drink and a bit of chilling out under the shade of the parasolworked out just right in the heat, but eventually it was time to make our way back to be there for our Covid tests at 4pm.
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| Looking back along the coastline as we walked back to the ship. You can see the parasols of Lighthouse Beach is just on the right edge of the photo. |
Back on board, (and after cool showers), we spent a bit of time on Lido deck gassing. We'd really gone up there for icecream. (Cos they have the whipped stuff available allllllll day. Mmmm mmm), but long cold drinks from the bar were also a must.
Dinner as usual, gassing to the other guys of the entertainment team as usual before a full night out with two shows. The deep velvet voice of Philip Browne in the Playhouse, followed by a plethora of funny bad jokes from Phil Melbourne in the Britannia Lounge. A really good evening.
I'll end the post with one observation. I've just realised that every passenger on this ship is white British. I'm not sure why that is? It's not that other nationalities and skin colours don't cruise, because we've travelled with people of all cultures on other ships. I wonder what it is about Saga that doesn't interest those people, or maybe it was just this cruise.
Anyway, tomorrow we will be in Antalya, Turkiye (they've changed their name), where we are on a waterfalls tour. Can't wait.
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