On account of my theory that calories don't count if no one else sees you eat them, I can now grab the flab around my midriff and hook it over my knees. I'm not even shitting you, I currently have enough padding to insulate Siberia and steps need to be taken to get rid of it. Apparently steps to the fridge to get more olives and halloumi don't count.
So I've heard tell of a phenomenon called "exercise." I believe it burns fat thus allowing you to consume your body weight in sheftalia without sideways glances from skinny people nibbling on lettuce leaves. I'm pretty sure it gives you license to chew with your mouth open and belch loudly an all so, with the Parental Unit in tow, off I went to Troödos to give this "walking" thing everyone raves about a go.
Well Troödos is a pretty little place init, with its pine trees and walking trails and wall to wall souvenir shops and shit loads of nuts. Ah, the nuts. It's compulsory to purchase nuts, sugar coated or not, to munch on during your hike. True story. They don't count towards your calorie intake either on account of them being amazing, same reason Big Macs and dark chocolate don't count.
The mountain range here is home to Cyprus' highest point, Mt Olympus which rises 1952 metres above sea level. The climb is so gradual you don't really notice the altitude changing but it's pretty fucking high up. I mean, it's not Everest, you don't need to go reaching for the altitude sickness tablets just yet but it's not a bad effort from a country the size of a postage stamp and not one of those big, special stamps either they produce to commemorate royal weddings and spanners and things.
Oh, and no, it's not THE Mt Olympus, there'd be no bearded gods sipping Jägermeister (what? Jäger is SO the drink of the gods) and sampling ambrosia voluvants sat atop this bad boy whilst dishing out punishments to those who forgot the goat sacrifice this week. All you'll find up here are some trees and soil and a large, golf ball type structure. Yep, someone (more than likely the British military) saw fit to stick a fuck off great big radar station right slap bang in the middle of a place of natural beauty and... well actually it looks kinda cool. No, really, there's something about it that makes me want to photograph it from every angle even though once you've seen one angle of a golf ball, you've pretty much seen them all. It's one of those things that somehow eludes what you think will be the perfect picture, even though it looks pretty much the same no matter how you look at it.
Anyway, this walk we went on. There are four marked walks with varying degrees of awesomeness in this part of the country and Mum and Dad had already done the Kaledonia Trail so we figured the second most awesome would be the Artemis Trail which takes you around the summit of Mt Olympus. You can go to the visitor centre in Troödos and grab yourself a basic information leaflet for your walk of interest, or you can just grab one for every walk to leave randomly strewn around the house. This leaflet contains all kinds of exciting stuff including a crude map of the area, instructions on how to not burn down the whole fucking mountain and a wiggly red line which represents the trail with numbered dots at sporadic intervals. And what are these numbered dots? Well, they're points of interest which are listed on the other side of the leaflet. Isn't Troödos good to you?
Your best bet for this walk is to find the little car park right at the start of the walk. It's only a kilometre or two out of Troödos but if, like me, your level of activity has deteriorated enough to be openly mocked by particularly lazy sloths then you'll be grateful you shaved that little extra bit off by the end of this 7km walk. It's not like it's a hard walk but I only really have feet so I have something to place on the coffee table whilst I eat cake and watch CSI. It doesn't matter that I once climbed Roraima and walked the Inca Trail, I've done a lot of sitting down since then, I'll start attempting longer walks when my naval isn't quite as well acquainted with my knees.
These points of interest are worth a mention though. Omg. Bless Cyprus and its complete lack of cool stuff. Most of these points are trees and flowers, some of which are endemic, which is interesting for those who are into flora etc and it's nice to know what you're looking at. It's not
a good time of year to see the flowers but the trees were there (yeah... trees don't tend to move much) and it's like they thought, what else can we fill our information leaflet with? So point of interest number 3 is a black pine stump. Yep, a stump that used to be a tree. Right there. Complete with its own little plaque. Shit, I'm so glad they pointed that out to me, I'd have been gutted to miss that.
Number 13. A rotten tree. An old, dead tree, on the ground, not really doing much, just being dead. Oh, and rotten. Dead and rotten. Aw I shouldn't mock but y'know, I have nothing else to do so I'm just gonna.
We passed a wooden cabin that made you feel like you'd stepped onto the set of The Hills Have Eyes causing you to quicken your pace whilst keeping an ear out for the sound of chainsaws starting up. Me and Dad sniggered at the name of the Giant Pinus Negra, the 500+ year old black pine. We marvelled at the "Exploration Pit to locate chromite" with no visible pit and gazed in awe at the "impressive exposure of harzburgite with small dunite lenses."
We were maybe halfway through the walk when something happened to the sky. Something odd. Something we'd not seen since May. There were clouds! Actual clouds! And guess what started coming out of the clouds. Go on, guess. No? Rain. It was fucking raining. In Cyprus. In the summer. Armageddon is clearly upon us, we're just waiting for the plague of locusts and it's all over... Actually it wasn't that bad until the thunder started.
Now, I love a good storm. Clearly I didn't get this off my mother. I've never seen her move so quickly but I guess it doesn't help matters when your daughter has a lightning rod for a face and you're surrounded by trees, some of which have large splits down them after been struck. Point of interest number 6; a black pine tree struck by lightning because "trees, particularly tall trees and with resinous wood, attract lightning, often causing forest fires." Yeah nah, I probably shouldn't have reminded her of this ay.
It didn't rain too much as we finished the walk, more of a spit here and there despite the epic grumbling of the thunder which freaked the shit out of Mum. We cruised past the "impressive rocky area of dunite," the "exceptionally pleasant view point" and the "pegmatitic pyroxenitic gabbro." I repeatedly photographed the golf ball and the ski lifts belonging to Europe's most southerly ski slopes and as we finally got back to the car the heavens well and truly opened. It fucking pissed it down.
So yeah, the Troödos mountains are pretty. It's not going to blow your box apart but it's a pleasant change from the beaches and it's always cooler up there, it's lovely not to be melting. I totally enjoyed the walk and spending some quality time with the couple that spawned me but Cyprus, seriously, the only thing you have going for you is beaches and sunshine. You should probably stop with the wet shit falling from the sky already.
It's Not Just About The Beaches
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Τροόδους, Limassol, Cyprus
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Comments

2025-02-18
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chrispreece1
2011-10-02
I thoroughly enjoyed this walk, and so good seeing Viv and Martin.Theres a mount Olympus on Lesvos too (I think they're all called that) but I haven't climbed it yet. Thunder! Rain! Lovely.
travelnshit
2011-10-03
Well when you find a good name you might as well stick to it :)
Omg my boss was saying if you head to the beach here in the evenings in October, sometimes you can watch the lightning strike. He's see it strike not far away from him twice while he's been out fishing.