The B6 main road (locally referred as Limassol - Paphos old road, Greek "Παλαιός δρόμος Λεμεσού - Πάφου") used to be the main connecting route between Cyprus's second largest city and major seaport

Limassol Limassol (; el, Λεμεσός, Lemesós ; tr, Limasol or ) is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the district with the same name. Limassol is the second largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population ...

and

Paphos Paphos ( el, Πάφος ; tr, Baf) is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos. The current city of Pap ...

, one of the island's top tourist destinations.

History

Since the island's capital was moved from

to Nicosia after the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

times, transportation to

- being a very small town at the time - from the rest of the island was very difficult due to the mountainous geomorphology of the island's Southwestern coast. Until the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

colonial times people also used the sea as an alternative to avoid the extremely long dangerous path connecting the two areas. In the end of 19th Century, near 1890, the first road was built. It was approximately 80 km long and between 10-12 feet wide. The B6 was built at 1963 and it runs along the same corridor of the first road. After the Turkish invasion in 1974, and the occupation of the touristic key city of Famagusta the government searched for alternatives to attract tourism to the rest of the island. The need of good road transportation to the whole island was one of the first projects to be done. The road is 66 km long (6 km longer than the A6 Motorway, a modern 4 lane highway that replaced the B6 as the main connecting route). It runs through 7 villages and the Western Sovereign Base Area.

Current status

After the completion of the A6 Motorway in 1996 the road is only used by locals, and rarely big traffic volumes occur. It is a very well maintained road and a very interesting drive. A small part of it after the village Pissouri is used by tourists as scenic route, having a bend right next to

Petra Tou Romiou Petra tou Romiou ("Rock of the "Roman") (that is East Roman or Byzantine as Byzantines referred to themselves as either Greeks or Romans until the 1920s), also known as Aphrodite's Rock, is a sea stack in Paphos, Cyprus. It is located off the sh ...

, the legendary Aphrodite's birthplace. This road is currently closed to traffic from Pissouri to Aphrodites Rock due to instability of the land. It was closed in May 2019. There are plans to fix and reopen the road between Aphrodites Rock an Pissouri. Tenders finished at the end of November. Construction works are supposed to start end of January and will finish on June.

References

Motorways and roads in Cyprus Limited-access roads {{Cyprus-road-stub

History

Current status

See also

References