Car Hire Paphos Town: Kato Paphos, the Harbour and the Old Town
Two towns share one name here, and where you collect the car decides which of them your week revolves around.
Same as pickup
The value table · Paphos
Every car, side by side.Measured, not sold.
The bars below are drawn to one shared scale, so the gap you see is the gap you pay. Switch the measure to rank the fleet on the day rate or on the full hire.
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Insurance available on every car · TPL · CDW · SCDW · Full CDW
One name, two towns, a hill in between
There are two Paphos. Kato Paphos is the lower one, built along the water. Ktima is the upper one, with the market and streets laid out long before anyone had to park on them.
Kato Paphos, down at the water
The flat half, and the visitor-facing one. The harbour, the castle, the archaeological park with the mosaics, the Tombs of the Kings road and nearly every hire office in town all sit down here, along Poseidonos Avenue.
Ktima, up the hill
The market, the old streets, the shops people use. Narrow, one-way in places, parked solid along both kerbs by mid-morning.
Two kilometres of climb
Apostolou Pavlou Avenue does all the climbing. A few minutes by car, a long warm walk the other way.
Why the split decides your booking
Down at the water you can have a car brought to your room and leave it standing while you walk to dinner. Up in Ktima a car is easy to reach and hard to put down again.
Where a town pickup actually happens
Very little of the hiring in Paphos happens at a counter in the old town. The offices are where the visitors sleep, and much of the fleet does not wait at an office.
Best if you are staying on the front
Most in-town offices sit on Poseidonos Avenue or a street back from it, among the hotels. You leave the lobby, sign for the car, and you are on the coast road.
Best for a short, deliberate hire
A handful of offices sit at the harbour end, in sight of the castle. They suit a car taken for two or three days rather than a whole week. The catch is never the collection, it is where the car goes afterwards.
Best if you would rather not walk anywhere
Seventy-two of the 140 cars offer delivery, so the most common town pickup is no pickup at all: the car arrives outside the hotel and the paperwork happens in the lobby. The mechanics are on the hotel delivery page.
Best treated as a second choice
Offices thin out above the hill. If your room is up there, take delivery at the door or collect at the water and drive up once.
Where the car sleeps near the harbour
A hire car in the lower town spends most of its week stationary. Three places to leave it sit on the harbour side and one up the hill.
| Where | What it suits | Walk to the harbour | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| The archaeological park car park | A morning with the mosaics | Flat, a few minutes | The obvious choice on the harbour side, and the one that fills by midday. |
| The harbour car park | An evening on the front | You are already there | Closest to the boats and the tavernas, and the first to fill in season. |
| Hotel parking on Poseidonos | Anyone staying on the strip | Ten to twenty minutes | The least trouble of the four. Confirm it before you book the car. |
| Kerbside in the Ktima lanes | A morning at the market | Not a walk, it is uphill | One-way, narrow, parked both sides. Short car, folded mirrors, patience. |
The two kilometres in between
Apostolou Pavlou Avenue joins the two halves. It is short, it climbs the whole way, and everyone staying here learns it in a day.
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At the water
Poseidonos Avenue
Flat, wide, hotels on the landward side. Most handovers happen a few minutes from here, and most of those cars sleep here too.
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The turn inland
leaving the seafront
The avenue leaves the harbour quarter near the archaeological park and rises at once. Late morning is the worst of it.
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The climb
Apostolou Pavlou
A steady pull past shops, lights and a long run of kerbside parking. On the left, in a car you met an hour ago, it feels longer than it is.
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The top
Ktima
The street pattern changes underneath you: narrower, older, one-way more often than not. This is where a large car starts to look like a mistake.
Why a small car earns its keep up here
The lanes above the hill were laid out before cars and absorbed them by parking along one kerb and sending traffic the other way. Most take one car at a time, so meeting a delivery van means somebody reverses, and reversing is easier in something short.
That is the case for a compact here, and it is practical rather than frugal. Sixty-three of the 140 cars in the Paphos listing are compacts, the largest class by a wide margin, and the streets are the reason, not the price.
The counterweight is honest. With four adults and their luggage aboard, a compact stops looking clever. In town the size costs you one day in seven, while a long bonnet up the hill costs you every morning.
In the old town
- Lanes that take one car at a time
- most of them
- Compacts in the listing
- 63 of 140
- Cars with two pedals
- 136 of 140
- Cars that will come to you
- 72 of 140
How many days you actually need it
The town half of this trip does not need a car. The front, the harbour and the archaeological park are all walkable, and storing a car you are not using is the one real annoyance of a week by the water.
The car is for what sits outside the town: Coral Bay about 12 km north-west past Peyia, Petra tou Romiou roughly 25 km east on the B6, the Baths of Aphrodite around 40 km north near Latchi, and Troodos an hour and a half to two hours inland.
So plenty of bookings here cover part of the stay. With 72 of the 140 cars offering delivery, starting on the third morning outside your hotel is ordinary. First time in Cyprus, spend five minutes on the driving on the left page.
Put your dates in and see the fleet
Delivery is set per car rather than per supplier, and availability in Paphos shifts week to week. Your dates shorten the list to what is bookable.
See the carsHiring and parking in town: five questions
Barely. The offices cluster along the coast road where the hotels are, and much of the fleet is delivered rather than collected. Above the hill you are likelier to have a car brought to you than to find a counter.
The archaeological park car park and the harbour car park are the obvious choices on the water side, and hotel parking along the front is easier than either. The harbour side fills by midday.
Yes, though the lanes are narrow, largely one-way and parked along both kerbs. A compact is the difference between a two minute manoeuvre and a ten minute one, and 63 of the 140 cars here are compacts.
Not for the town itself, which is a walk. A car is for what sits outside it, which is why many visitors hire for part of the stay rather than all of it.
For 72 of the 140 cars, yes. Delivery is ordinary practice here rather than a rare extra, which is why many town rentals never involve an office.