The village of Lofou is in the district of the ‘ampelochoria’ between Limassol and Paphos, about 26 kilometers northwest of the city of Limassol.
Lofou is built in a circular pattern on hills, at an altitude of 780 meters and has a total of about 650 centimeters in annual rainfall. It is surrounded by mountains with narrow and steep versants. The landscape is divided by two rivers that are canals of ‘Kryos’ and ‘Kouris’, which both come from the river ‘Kouris’.
Today, it takes about 25 minutes to reach the village for someone setting out from Limassol. Driving up the main road that leads to Platres and making a left turn after Alassa village (current position), the visitor may be able to reach the village within 15 minutes.
The village is built on a hill between mountains and gets its name based on this fact. The name Lofou was inspired by the Greek word 'lofos' which means 'hill'. The original name of the village was "Lofos" since the early 20th century. Simos Menandros (1970) supports that the renaming of the village from "Lofos" to "Lofou" may be attributed to a linguistic change in the everyday language of local farmers. Therefore, 'Lofou' ended up having a female gender because of a linguistic change in morphology. 'Lofou' is the name by which the village is nowadays widely known and referred to. There are no historical findings that may help us define the exact date on which 'Lofou' was founded. The area must have been inhabited since the Bronze Age. This fact may be verified by the various archeological findings, particularly by the ancient pots that they were scattered around the area of the village.
Comments