I visited my homeland to see if I could fall back in love with this fierce Mediterranean isle - this is what I discovered

"The marble plaque is improbably specific. In Greek, the inscription, from 2013, reads: 'On this beach, on 9 January one thousand years ago, Aphrodite stepped onto the shores of Pafos.' A hulking rock formation marks the spot where the Greek goddess of love is said to have emerged off the coast of Cyprus in a flurry of sea spray and spume, posing naked, at least according to Botticelli's 15th-century rendering, on a giant scallop shell."

"I grew up not far from here, in Cyprus's second-largest city, Lemesos, or Limassol. My English father and Kenyan-Indian mother arrived in the late 1970s and never left. A saucepan-shaped mass 140 miles long and 62 miles wide, Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean, after Sicily and Sardinia. But by my mid 20s, it had started to feel small."

"Cyprus's strategic location has attracted plenty of unwanted admirers over the ages: the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, Crusaders, Venetians, Ottomans and British all passed through; and then, in 1974, Turkey invaded, and continues to occupy 36 per cent."

Cyprus, the third-largest Mediterranean island, holds deep mythological significance as the birthplace of Aphrodite and features ancient temples dedicated to the goddess of love. The author grew up in Lemesos, Cyprus's second-largest city, born to an English father and Kenyan-Indian mother who arrived in the late 1970s. Despite childhood roots on the island, the author felt constrained by its size and left for Dubai as a young adult, experiencing a sense of not belonging. Cyprus's history reflects centuries of external conquest and occupation by various empires including the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Ottomans, and British. The island's complexity extends to modern geopolitical tensions, including Turkey's 1974 invasion and continued occupation of a significant portion of the island.

Read at CN Traveller