Day 1: Home to Paphos

Even by our standards it was a very early start this morning, with a 07.15 flight from Gatwick. We'd booked some cheap airport parking at a small hotel, which turned out to only run a shuttle to Gatwick twice an hour, so although we were technically booked into it for 04.30, we were aiming to arrive by 04.15 to make sure we had time to hand over the car keys etc before the 04.30 shuttle. Counting backwards, that meant we needed to leave Nuneaton at the incredibly early hour of 01.45 Normally when we leave home at about 03.00 to catch early flights, we see lots of taxis around Nuneaton bringing people home from nights out in Birmingham. But today we were too early even to see that; everywhere was completely deserted.

We got to the parking for 04.15 and checked in with plenty of time for the shuttle. This was another one of those low-budget affairs where the same person is manning the reception and driving the shuttle, which I guess is why it only runs twice an hour. After our horrendous experience checking in at Gatwick with Thomas Cook on the way to Burgas, I was a little bit apprehensive about checking in today, but it turned out that the Easyjet check in couldn't have been more efficient. There were no desks - just a huge row of self service baggage drop machines - and we barely had to wait any time at all.

That meant we had plenty of time for breakfast in the airport, which was good because it was probably going to be early evening before we got any more food. The flight to Cyprus is quite a long one, at 4.5 hours, and there is a two-hour time difference to the UK. That meant that although it felt like we had a really early flight at 07.15, it was going to be 13.45 by the time our plane touched down in Cyprus.

Luckily for such a long flight, the plane turned out to be quite nice and it wasn't 100% orange inside, which is always a concern with Easyjet I think I fell asleep during the safety demonstration (I have no recollection of take off!) and I woke up properly a couple of hours later when the pilot made an announcement about the flight path. We were flying over Belgrade at that point, which he said was the midpoint of the route, before carrying on across Sofia and Plovdiv, into Greece and then across southern Turkey towards Cyprus. Unfortunately, the whole of Europe seemed to be covered in cloud today and so there wasn't much of a view. The cloud only began to break up as we flew over Turkey and the sky didn't become completely clear until we were flying over the sea towards Cyprus.

Passport control at Paphos airport was rather unusual. We had to scan our passports at a small machine, not dissimilar to the sort of check-in machine that prints boarding passes, and then look into a camera. The machine took a photo of us, which it then printed onto a slip of paper, together with our names, passport numbers etc. We then had to walk past a man sitting at a passport control desk, who just collected up the slips of paper without looking at them. Never seen a system quite like that anywhere else!

When I was planning the holiday a couple of weeks ago, I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out how to get to Paphos from the airport. The airport is less than 10 miles outside the main town, but the airport buses run really infrequently. The first bus I found, which runs from the airport to quite close by where we are staying, only runs four times a day for example. Eventually I found another bus, the 612, which runs once an hour or so to the main bus station in Paphos. The next one was due at 14.35, so we had a bit of time to kill in the airport.

When we got to the bus stop, there were only a handful of other people waiting for the bus. It seems to be one of those airports where almost everyone is getting onto a tour operator coach or taking a taxi. When I'd researched taxis online, it seemed like they cost around €30, while the airport bus only cost us €1.50 each It was a slightly bumpy ride though and it seemed to take quite a roundabout route, taking around 30 minutes to cover the fairly short distance to the centre of Paphos.

Once we got off the bus, we could see the sea straightaway. Probably the best view we've ever had from a bus station

It was a walk of just over a mile from here towards our apartment. We found it without too much difficulty and the owner met us outside. It turned out to be much bigger than I was expecting, with a bedroom and outdoor terrace...

...kitchen with another terrace...

...plus a living area. It seems like really good value for €50/night.

There's a clear British influence on Cyprus; we'd already been surprised to find out that they drive on the left hand side of the road here, and we were even more surprised once we'd settled in to the apartment and found that all the plug sockets were British too and we didn't need our adapters!

Some things felt very reminiscent of Greece, though!

Despite the extra sleep on the plane, I was still pretty tired and definitely needed a nap by this point. I slept for about an hour, so it was around 17.30 by the time we left the apartment and started walking back into the centre of Paphos.

We passed what looked like an interesting building...