Akourdaleia Church And Mill
We recently reported on a Cave Church between Arodes and Akourdaleia. That was only the first part of our adventure. We continued our journey through the rugged hills and secret gorges that make up the countryside around the villages, and stumbled upon some other hidden delights...
Gorgeous View
This is a good place to start an article. A beautiful view over some outstanding countryside. It's not far from the B7, but very few people will have seen this.
Distant Kritou Terra
When I had found the Cave Church I was actually looking on the map for gorges. I had identified some possible locations and was on the hunt for points of interest. I worked out what looked like a nice route through the countryside, and set off.
Saint Eusebius
According to Google, this is actually a Church. They do tend to "big up" things in Cyprus though. Αγιος Ευσέβιος is in fact one of the many shrines you will find dotted around Cyprus.
Mind you, there are various man-made holes in the rockface here, which could form part of a natural altar. So who knows? Perhaps they do have a service here, possibly on August 6th, which is the Saint's feast day.
Close Up
Let's face it, the rock the shrine stands on could itself be used as an altar.
I didn't know it at the time, but this shrine is actually on a walking trail that runs from Kritou Terra to Pano Akourdaleia. So I imagine some of the walking groups of Paphos will have been along here at some point.
Let's Have A Map
As we will be exploring a fairly remote area I thought a map might come in handy. I had to use a satellite image, as most of the tracks I drove down aren't shown on the regular map. We arrived on the map from below. That was the direction of the cave church. I wanted to visit the shrine on the left and the church on the right, so this is the route I took. I cannot stress how beautiful the route is, though the drive itself is a bit tricky in places. I would personally only do it in a 4x4. If you just want to visit the church and mill, you will have better access from the Akourdaleia end.
The route from the shrine to the church follows an existing walking route from Kritou Terra. There are a couple of potential gorges along the way.