Kayaking around Cape Aspro

One of our ways of saying Goodbye to Cyprus is visiting every possible corner of it and making new memories.

We used to live in Pissouri for some time but never got around to kayaking there. It seemed like a great idea to start our weekend with it then.

Renting a kayak was cheaper than we thought but since Philip's never done that before, the thought of getting into the water felt like a challenge. I must say we both were positively surprised though how easily we managed it.

However I also need to add that his rowing skills were quite bad, I kept getting hit in my head which made me a bit grumpy...

The water was so blue and clear that we could see the bottom no matter how far we went from the shores. It took us less than 20 minutes to row around the first big rock by the trail, that we hiked just over a year ago.

The view is just as stunning from up there, absolutely worth the walk.

We had a short pit stop by the corner, where we looked back at Pissouri bay and caught

our breaths before getting back to the now wavier open waters.

Another 10 minutes and another corner later we reached our final stop and parked the kayak.

Luckily the water was still shallow enough to walk and pass by the edges of the rocks. On our right, there was a small bay with the most amazing view of Cape Aspro's formation. Turquoise blue ocean, white rock and pebbly coast. It truly was wonderful.

In hindsight, we should have rented the kayak for 2 hours so we could have spent some more time swimming and snorkeling there.

Unfortunately it was time to row back, but we sweetened our return with some well-deserved cocktail and ice cream in the nearby beach resort.

The hotel is amazing with a great spa but the reason I always liked going there is the small All saint chapel in the garden, which is quite uniquely and beautifully painted.

The small but remarkable All saints chapel can be visited all year round in the garden of Columbia Beach Resort.

The chapel was painted by the distinguished artist John Corbidge, who in 1969 decided to settle permanently on the island, after leaving Athens.

This is how the artist himself described his experience of creating the murals in the chapel: “The walls seemed to embrace me urging me to infuse them with a life of their own. From the very beginning I felt as though I was inside a rainbow, working at a desperate pace to capture and somehow stabilize the elusive rays of colours onto the beautifully curving surfaces of the walls. The result is a marriage of diversity of styles reminiscent of other ages, mostly Byzantine… A feeling of flowing energy and of tactility pervades…”