The Cyclops Cave – a fabulous cave with a mythical past. Except, for Goobie, the myth is very real. Will he wake the cyclops as we explore the cave? And what else might we find in and around this beautiful area?

Finally, I’m blogging about the Cyclops cave! We’ve been before, in 2017, when bad morning sickness put a stop to blogging for a while. This month we returned, Goobie keen to show Herc where the cyclops sleeps.

The Cyclops cave is just a couple of kilometres from Konnos Bay, near Protaras. It sits on a headland, eyeballing Agioi Anargyroi chapel across the bay (which also has a fabulous cave – but more of that another time). You can reach the cave one of two ways – on foot or by car. We’ve done both but personally I prefer walking.

To walk to the Cyclops cave, park in the Konnos Bay car park and you’ll see a nature trail that starts here on the north side of the bay. Follow a narrow path up the hill and this winds along the headland to the cave at the very end.

We walked the trail in April 2017 when the weather was mild. I can imagine that walking it in the summer months would be a sticky affair. There isn’t a great deal of shade but there are benches along the way to stop, rest and take in the views. I was around nine weeks pregnant with Herc when we first visited. I felt so sick and tired – the benches were a lifesaver.

If you are walking with children, be extra careful as the path takes you near the edge of some steep drops in places.

About half way along the trail there is what looks like an ancient quarry on your left. It smelled like people had stopped to use it as a loo, but we had a look nonetheless.

The final stretch of the trail is the most beautiful, taking you over rocks and past trees and vegetation. Some of the trees are labelled and in the spring everything is greener and dotted with flowers.

On our recent visit this month, I found another cave on this trail, 100m or so from the Cyclops cave. I missed it the first time because the trail goes over the top of it. It’s worth a quick look, even if to get out of the sun for a couple of minutes.

This time we decided not to walk the trail. Herc is a great walker but slow – and in June it was already boiling. So I looked on Google satellite images and saw that there is a track that takes you straight to the cave. Driving there ruins some of the excitement of finding the cave, but it was convenient.

There’s a picnic site on top of the cave where we stopped for lunch. A path leads down to the cave’s two entrances. The entrances are low and wide but you don’t have to stoop too much to get in.

First impressions on entering the cave is that it’s surprisingly big! Apparently over 100 square metres.  It’s the largest cave I’ve visited in Cyprus after the Incirli cave in the north and the incredible Fabrika Hill in Paphos. Even Matt was impressed.

The cave gets its name from the one-eyed monster in Homer’s Odyssey. The cyclops lived in this cave and trapped Ulysses and his men as they were trying to travel from Troy to Ithaca. Cool!

Apparently there are signs of pre-Neolithic habitation in the cave and, more recently, it was used to hide EOKA fighters in the 1950s.

The floor is uneven and the roof slopes steeply down at the far end, held up by natural pillars. To the western end there is a small opening to what looks like another chamber. We have never taken a torch powerful enough to see what’s in this chamber. And the roof is too low for us to have the guts to go in. What’s inside?

Goobie is convinced that this is where the cyclops is, asleep. He was utterly convinced in 2017 and seemed just as convinced in 2020. Unless he was humouring me . . .

For someone who thinks he’s metres away from a one-eyed giant, I admire his guts.

Aside from searching for a cyclops, something else drew my eye that I don’t remember seeing on our first visit. Loads of spider webs!! Big, thick webs running across boulders of the ground, sealing entrances to nooks and holes. What kind of spiders made these impressive webs?

Goobie and I have been keen to spot a tarantula in the wild. Could tarantulas be living in this cave? I’ve read that their webs don’t tend to be very big. But something fairly big must have made these:

It remains a mystery. But to the arachnophobes out there, don’t let this put you off. Despite searching, we didn’t see a single tarantula.

Or a single cyclops either, for that matter.

When we left the Cyclops cave, Goobie spotted a rocky bay beneath us. We hadn’t noticed it in April 2017 because the sea had been rough and the tide high. This time we were able to walk down a little path to the sea. We passed scuba divers on their way back from a dive. Apparently this is a great area for diving. Goobie has to wait a year before he’s old enough to dive. For now, he was happy to enjoy the fabulous rock pools in this little bay.

He spotted crabs, whelks and tiny fish. And then he yelled ‘Mummy! A jellyfish!!’ There in front of him was a graceful little jellyfish.

It looked so gentle – but it was a mauve stinger and it can be very painful if you accidentally touch it. A swarm of jellyfish had closed Konnos beach a week earlier. I wondered whether this one had been left behind.

Two visits, two different seasons, two different experiences. Both memorable. If you’re in the Konnos Bay area and fancy working up a sweat before cooling down in the sea, the Cyclops cave is well worth a visit.

Just be careful to go quietly – in case you wake the cyclops in its lair.