Brief visit to Potamos

Another year has rolled by, accounting-wise, and our accountant friend has come out to stay for another week to work on Fixed Assets and Year-End and other such essentials for Richard's work.  While she's here, we usually try to take her somewhere that she hasn't been before.  Last year we went to Agia Napa, for instance.  Four years ago - hard to believe it's so long ago! - we spent a day in Limassol, visiting Kurium and Kolossi Castle.

This time, we decided to go out on Sunday afternoon, and our friend suggested Potamos, a fishing village highly recommended by one of the tourist books. It's somewhere I had never been in our fifteen years, although I have heard others talk about it. Richard has been there a few times, but only by boat. Apparently it's about thirty nautical miles by sea to Potamos from Larnaka, so a good destination for a day sail in the dinghy.

It was apparently 46km by road which is about 28 miles, and took us half an hour or so to reach. I had little idea what to expect. The word 'Potamos' in Greek just means 'river', but Richard told us that it was just a little inlet of salt water where fishing boats stay. Our first sight of the bay was this:

It was a pleasant afternoon; sunny, but only around 16C. We decided to walk along the beach first of all. Although there were one or two people with barbecues, it was mostly deserted: 

The water was extremely clear, with gentle rock pools and some seaweed floating around, although clear water is pretty much impossible to show in a photograph:

There's very little tide in Cyprus, so the sand was soft making it hard to walk in places. Where we could, we walked on damper sand; in other places we walked along a rough path.  As in Larnaka, there are yellow wildflowers just about everywhere:

Of course, nowhere is a true idyll. I was quite shocked to see quite a bit of litter lying around, some of it looking quite recent:

Other litter had evidently been caught up in the foliage:

There was some slightly larger litter too, which would be rather more difficult to remove:

Or perhaps that's what happens when waiting... and waiting... for a bus.

As we walked back, we passed a very busy fish restaurant, and saw some prickly pears growing wild:

We didn't even consider picking them, however! We would have needed rather strong gloves. 

Many of the fishing boats looked old and tired, and the walkways over the sand decidedly ramshackle:

I think this pretty much sums up the relaxed attitude to the law that's prevalent in Cyprus (you can click the photo to make it bigger - but in case it still isn't clear, the white squarish sign surrounded by parked vehicles says 'NO PARKING':

I loved the reflections made by this boat, which looked a bit cleaner and brighter than many:

Before long we reached the end of the water, and saw what must once have been a hotel of some kind:

We all shuddered a bit at the thought of the metal bridge that gave access from the other side!

While I'm not surprised that an old hotel would still be standing, albeit abandoned, I did wonder quite how this hut continued to stay upright:

As we returned to the car, I looked out over a landscape which was green enough that it could almost have been a roadside in the UK:

.. except that, moving a little to one side, there was yet more large-size 'litter' in the form of ancient rusty boat trailers:

It was a pleasant enough place to go for a walk, and on a warm day the beach might have been quite fun for children. But the sea was too rocky to be much use for swimming, and there wasn't really a whole lot to see.  We've been here fifteen years now, and this is my first visit. I don't think I've missed out on anything.

Still, as a typical example of an old-style fishing 'village', Potamos is perhaps worth a visit for an eager tourist wanting to see traditional Cyprus.