Mantra tou Kampiou - Throumpiaris

The Mantra tou Kampiou – Throumpiaris Trail is a very short, very steep connector in the Machairas forest, climbing away from the Mantra tou Kampiou picnic area towards the locality of Throumpiaris. It covers only 0.85 kilometres but gains 61 metres and gives back barely one, rising from about 656 metres to 716 metres. In practice that means a single sustained pull with no flat ground to break it up — ten or fifteen minutes of honest effort, and an easy stroll back down.

Both halves of the name are plain Cypriot geography. A mantra (μάντρα) is a sheepfold or walled stone enclosure; the picnic area below is thought to take its name from the ruins of one such building nearby. Throumpiaris (Θρουμπιάρης) comes from θρούμπι, the aromatic savory (Satureja) that grows across these dry limestone-and-pine slopes — a place named for the herb that covers it.

This is a spur rather than a destination in its own right. It is most useful as a short leg-stretcher from the picnic tables, or as a link at the bottom end of the much longer descents from the ridge above — Kakokefalos - Mantra tou Kampiou (left) and Kakokefalos - Mantra tou Kampiou (right), both of which finish at the same picnic area. The pine cover here is dense, so it stays reasonably pleasant even in warm weather.