My first day heading east, crossing lower land separating the mountains of the Akamas peninsula from the foothills of the Troodos.
Droushia, the village I stayed in last night, is in the hills, 640 metres above sea level. When I woke my hotel was enveloped in cloud, the view down from the hotel pool to the distant sea hidden, until the rising sun burnt away the mist. Farm tracks took me down the hillside, switching back and fore between fields of stubble, leading to, but not entering, the next village of Kitou Tera. After Kitou Tera, for most of the day the E4 followed tarmac roads. Easy walking as there was very little traffic, less than I experienced in the more "remote" Akamas peninsula, mainly because today I was in an area little visited by tourists, although the villages try to attract them with little museums of village life. I visited one at Steni which was full of things villages used to use: looms; bread proving trays; dog tags, and the like.
The road took a serpentine route, twisting its way down to the river, the lowest point (in terms of altitude) of my day, much of the rest was uphill. I was mainly passing fields of dry stubble, an exception was an area of bright green beans, their colour achieved by irrigation using thin black pipes. The E4 seems to bypass the centre of most villages, a mistake as the old villages are one of the attractions of the route. I diverted into the centre of Goudi for a morning coffee, fascinated by the expressive hands of the people in conversation on the adjacent table. Later I left the E4 to have lunch (a pitta toastie) at a cafe in Steni.
Between Steni and Lysos, the village where I am staying the night, I found no GPS track in my research, so created one based on maps and Google Earth that seemed to match that in the E4 Cyprus pamphlet. Fortunately it was a viable route with no obstructions and, from occasional E4 signs, also seemed the correct one. The only downside was a steep uphill climb at the end of the day to reach Lysos. Today I was seeing signposts marked "Pafos 31 kilometres", a day's hike, so it was a bit depressing that I had taken 6 days to reach this point, a result of the meandering nature of the E4. So I was pleased that today at least I was heading east in the direction of my destination.
Tonight I am at the Marmaras apartments where my room has a terrace with a grand view and my evening meal is just a short walk away.
24 kilometres walked today with a 680 metre total ascent. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.
Droushia, the village I stayed in last night, is in the hills, 640 metres above sea level. When I woke my hotel was enveloped in cloud, the view down from the hotel pool to the distant sea hidden, until the rising sun burnt away the mist. Farm tracks took me down the hillside, switching back and fore between fields of stubble, leading to, but not entering, the next village of Kitou Tera. After Kitou Tera, for most of the day the E4 followed tarmac roads. Easy walking as there was very little traffic, less than I experienced in the more "remote" Akamas peninsula, mainly because today I was in an area little visited by tourists, although the villages try to attract them with little museums of village life. I visited one at Steni which was full of things villages used to use: looms; bread proving trays; dog tags, and the like.
The road took a serpentine route, twisting its way down to the river, the lowest point (in terms of altitude) of my day, much of the rest was uphill. I was mainly passing fields of dry stubble, an exception was an area of bright green beans, their colour achieved by irrigation using thin black pipes. The E4 seems to bypass the centre of most villages, a mistake as the old villages are one of the attractions of the route. I diverted into the centre of Goudi for a morning coffee, fascinated by the expressive hands of the people in conversation on the adjacent table. Later I left the E4 to have lunch (a pitta toastie) at a cafe in Steni.
Between Steni and Lysos, the village where I am staying the night, I found no GPS track in my research, so created one based on maps and Google Earth that seemed to match that in the E4 Cyprus pamphlet. Fortunately it was a viable route with no obstructions and, from occasional E4 signs, also seemed the correct one. The only downside was a steep uphill climb at the end of the day to reach Lysos. Today I was seeing signposts marked "Pafos 31 kilometres", a day's hike, so it was a bit depressing that I had taken 6 days to reach this point, a result of the meandering nature of the E4. So I was pleased that today at least I was heading east in the direction of my destination.
Tonight I am at the Marmaras apartments where my room has a terrace with a grand view and my evening meal is just a short walk away.
24 kilometres walked today with a 680 metre total ascent. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.
 |
| Typical field of stubble by the roadside dotted with ocasional trees |
No comments:
Post a Comment