Tombs of the Kings

How to visit, and what you’re actually seeing

The name oversells it slightly — no kings were buried here, just well-off citizens and officials of Hellenistic and Roman Paphos, and everything portable was carried off by looters centuries ago. What survives is the architecture: chambers cut straight down into the coastal bedrock, the grandest of them built to look like the houses the dead had lived in. Head first for Tomb 3, the standout, where a flight of steps drops into an open-air courtyard ringed on all four sides by Doric columns carved from the living rock, the sea visible just beyond. The other tomb clusters are emptier and rougher, but worth a slow loop.

There’s nothing to book. It’s a Cyprus Department of Antiquities site with a €2.50 gate price (about £2.15), paid on arrival by cash or card, and it almost never queues — turn up any time within opening hours and you walk straight in. Over-65s usually go free, and a Department of Antiquities multi-day pass covers it alongside the Paphos Archaeological Park down by the harbour if you’re doing several ancient sites. Note the two are not the same enclosure: the Park is by the harbour, the Tombs are about 2km north, so a single combined ticket doesn’t exist — you pay separately or buy the pass.

Getting there, timing it, and the verdict

It sits out on the headland north of the harbour, so unless you’re staying in the Kato Paphos hotel strip it’s a journey. Bus 615 from the harbour towards Coral Bay runs roughly every 15 minutes, stops directly outside, and costs around €1.50 a single; it’s a 30 to 40 minute walk otherwise, or a short taxi, and there’s a free car park if you’ve hired a car. Allow an hour to ninety minutes on site. Wear proper shoes — the paths are cut into uneven stone — and bring water and a hat, because there’s barely a scrap of shade and the open ground bakes from late morning. Early or late in the day is far kinder in summer.

At €2.50 this is one of the best-value couple of hours in Paphos, and the sunken courtyard of Tomb 3 is the kind of thing that stays with you. Just go in with the right expectation — it’s atmospheric carved stone above the sea, not a museum of treasures. Pair it with the harbour and Archaeological Park mosaics for a half-day of old Paphos rather than treating it as a destination on its own.