Kato Paphos, the Old Town, Coral Bay, Tombs of the Kings or Peyia — an honest comparison of the main areas to stay in Paphos, who each one suits and who it does not.
Paphos is often treated as one destination, but it is really several. The city spreads from the harbour up a hill and then along the coast for fifteen kilometres, and the area you choose changes the holiday more than the property does. A family that would have loved Kato Paphos can spend a week frustrated in Peyia, and the other way round.
We run a villa in Kato Paphos, so we are not neutral. What follows is still the description we would give a friend: what each area is actually like, and who it does not suit.
Kato Paphos is the coastal, lower part of the city. It holds the harbour, the castle, the Archaeological Park with the Roman mosaics, the seafront promenade and most of the restaurants that stay open late.
It suits you if you want to walk rather than drive. From most of Kato Paphos the beach is ten minutes on foot, the harbour twenty, and a supermarket or a pharmacy five. You can land at the airport, take one taxi, and not need a car for the rest of the week if you do not want one.
It does not suit you if you are looking for a wide sandy beach directly outside the door. The shoreline in Kato Paphos is a mix of sand, rock and small municipal beaches with imported sand — good for swimming, less impressive than the big bays further north. The main tourist strip also gets noisy in July and August; the residential streets a few hundred metres inland, where our own villa sits, are much quieter than the strip.
The Old Town is the real working city: the municipal market, small shops, bakeries, local tavernas, and prices noticeably lower than on the seafront.
It suits you if you have a car, you have been to Cyprus before, and you would rather eat where Cypriots eat than where the menus have photographs.
It does not suit you if you want to swim every day. The Old Town is roughly 1.5 km uphill from the sea — a fine walk down, a hot one back up in August, and a bus or taxi with children and beach bags. There is also very little evening life aimed at visitors.
North of Kato Paphos, the Tombs of the Kings road and the coast towards Chloraka are where most of the large hotels and apartment blocks are.
It suits you if you want a big resort hotel with a spa, several pools and a kids’ club, and you are happy to be driven or to take the bus into town.
It does not suit you if you like walking to things. The road is long, exposed and not especially interesting on foot, and the distances between one hotel and the next restaurant are deceptive on a map.
Coral Bay has the best swimming beach in the Paphos area: a genuine sandy crescent, sheltered, shallow at the edges, with sunbeds and beach bars.
It suits you if the beach is the point of the holiday and you have children who want sand rather than pebbles.
It does not suit you if you also want the harbour, the mosaics and the Old Town. Coral Bay is about 13 km from Kato Paphos — twenty minutes by car, longer by bus, and a taxi each way every evening adds up quickly. Out of season it goes very quiet; several restaurants close entirely between November and March.
Peyia is a village on the slope above Coral Bay, with views over the sea and a cluster of villas with private pools.
It suits you if you are renting a car anyway, you want a private pool and a view, and you are happy to drive to everything, including bread.
It does not suit you if anyone in the party would rather not drive after dinner. The roads are steep and narrow, and nothing is within walking distance.
Villa Nadezda is in Paradise Gardens, a quiet residential complex in Kato Paphos, 800 m from the beach and about twenty minutes’ walk from the harbour. It is a three-bedroom house with shared adult and children’s pools and free parking, and it is a few streets back from the main strip — close enough to walk everywhere, far enough that the evenings are quiet.
It is a good fit for a family or two couples who want a whole house in walkable Paphos. It is not the right choice if you want a private pool of your own, or a sandy beach thirty seconds from the door.
You can read more about the villa and its exact location, or check availability and prices for your dates.
