Polis Chrysochous, the bay town built over ancient Marion

Polis is the other face of Paphos district, a small, quiet town on a big bay, with the Akamas peninsula on one side and the Paphos hills on the other. Beneath its streets lies an ancient city-kingdom, and in it some of the best-preserved Venetian paintings in the west of the island. I’ll go through the sights and the buses. The bigger picture is in Paphos district.

The bay town

Polis had 2,570 residents in the 2021 census and is where the roads from Paphos, Akamas and the Pomos coast meet. It sits on Chrysochou Bay, about 37 km north of Paphos, and about 3 km as the crow flies from Latchi, its harbour.

What was Marion?

The Pafos tourism board explains that Marion lay beneath Polis, founded according to ancient texts by the legendary King Marieas. Inhabited since the late Neolithic, from the Archaic period it became one of the leading city-kingdoms of Cyprus, trading with the islands of the eastern Aegean, Attica and Corinth. The names of five of its kings are known.

Ptolemy I took it in 312 BC and the kingdom came to an end, until Ptolemy II Philadelphus refounded it as Arsinoe, after his sister and wife. The new city was smaller, but it prospered thanks to being nearer the copper mines, and it survived until the Arab raids of the 7th century laid it waste.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Polis on Expedia and filter by area before price.

What to see in Polis Chrysochous

The Marion-Arsinoe Local Archaeological Museum, on Archbishop Makarios III Avenue, has two rooms and an atrium. The first traces the history of the area from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages and the second gathers finds from the graves of Marion and Arsinoe, including statuettes and Roman gold jewellery. Entry is €2.50.

The opening hours are a muddle. The Pafos tourism board’s museums page has it open Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 16:00 and on Saturdays from 9:00 to 15:00, while the museum’s own page on the same website says Monday to Friday, 7:30 to 16:00. If you’re going on a Saturday, I’d ring 26 322 955 first.

The church of Agios Andronikos is the one thing in town I wouldn’t miss. It’s a small single-aisled church of the 16th century, with wall paintings from the Venetian period, between 1489 and 1570, showing the Ascension, Pentecost and the Sacrifice of Abraham among others. In Ottoman times it was a mosque, it was abandoned in 1963 and after 1974 its frescoes were cleaned of later plaster. In 1997 four floors from different periods were uncovered and left on view.

The church of Agia Kyriaki, also called Chrysopolitissa, dates from 1742, with buttresses of dressed limestone, and its icons from 1758 are now in the museum of the Bishopric of Arsinoe.

Getting around and where to stay

Polis has its own bus station. Route 645 runs to Karavela station in Paphos via Tsada, Stroumbi and Giolou, with departures almost every hour on weekdays. For Latchi and the Baths of Aphrodite take the 622, and for Neo Chorio, the 623. The 641 runs through Kritou Terra, Drouseia, Ineia, Arodes and Kathikas, and the 643a follows the coast to Pomos and Pachyammos. The 640 heads inland as far as Lysos.

To sleep, Polis campsite is right on the beach, among eucalyptus trees and 500 m from the centre, with 200 pitches from March to October, and the island’s other sites are in camping in Cyprus. Hotels in the area, including the two five-star ones, are in hotels in Latchi, and Polis’s licensed villas, Natura Beach and Zaharena, in villas in Cyprus.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Polis and pick one that fits your day.

Where the bus does not go, a car does: compare car hire in Polis before you arrive rather than at the desk.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Polis on Booking.com and filter by area before price.