My parents' visit, part two: Paphos

Thursday (May 9th) was our biggest outing with my parents, driving all the way to Paphos, another place I had never been. Last summer, while the little girls and I were in Germany and Marie was in Greece, Jörn and the boys had gone to Avakas Gorge and really enjoyed it, and were eager to share it with the rest of us. There was a bit of confusion as to who actually had directions and who should be following whom, but we did eventually arrive... For future reference, ask tourists, not locals, for directions. It was only when I finally asked someone who looked like an absolutely typical tourist and turned out to be one, only having arrived the day before, that I was given decent directions!

Having arrived considerably later than planned, we didn't carry our picnic on the "hike", but ate it at the parking lot, which had a shaded picnic table, before starting out.

 That turned out to be a very good idea, as much of the hike was actually a climb or a balance or a scramble or a jump, and it would have been very awkward to carry our impractically packed plastic containers and bags!

Avakas Gorge is beautiful and was completely worth the long drive and even all the detours on the way there, and we took way too many photos, of which the following are only a selection.

I forgot to take either the sling or the Ergo carrier, so carried Elisabeth like this for the first few minutes, but she soon got down and walked. I wouldn't have been able to carry her while climbing anyway, not even in a carrier.

This can be seen on many postcards...

The photo below doesn't show how high this rock was, nor how slippery, making it very difficult to get up onto. Most of us helped each other (at one point I slipped off completely and if I hadn't been holding both Marie's AND Jörn's hands, I would have landed pretty hard!), but my mom insisted on doing it completely herself, saying, "I can do it by MYSELF!!" in exactly the same way Elisabeth does. ;-P

My parents with all of the children...

Somewhere in this picture is a stranded baby goat, calling to its mama, slightly higher, who was calling back. I hope they managed to reconnect and get to safer ground...









 We then drove into the city of Paphos, to go to the Archaeological Park, where Jörn had been once a couple of years ago. As I parked, I realized that Elisabeth was asleep, and I groaned, knowing that even if she woke up, she would have to be carried and would be in a bad mood. Just as I steeled myself to the thought of just slinging her over my shoulder and carrying her like a sack of potatoes, Marie came up to me (she'd been riding in the other car) and said that she was tired and really didn't want to go anywhere--would it be okay if she just stayed in the car? And how it was okay! :-) So I didn't have to carry Elisabeth and Elisabeth got to keep sleeping, and the rest of us enjoyed exploring the ruins and partial excavations and beautiful mosaics.

 

At some point my dad offered to take us out for dinner somewhere on the way home, which we thought sounded very nice, although I didn't really have a clue how to start looking for a place. (Happily, my father started the offer by saying, "I know you don't do McDonald's, but could we find someplace else...?") The Archaeological Park was huge and we didn't even see everything before we were all ready to leave, and by that time it was so close to dinner time that we decided to look for someplace right there in Paphos. I went and got Marie and Elisabeth from the car and it didn't take long to find a place at all, which was fairly reasonable price-wise, considering that it was a touristy place, and the food was delicious. Jacob was the only one who used the camera while we were there, as evidenced by the following photos:

A last view of the seafront, with the fort in the background, before we left Paphos:

When we got home, four children went straight to bed, but I don't know what the others did, nor my parents or even my husband...I got in bed, and the next thing I knew, it was Friday morning.