Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world — the UN-administered Green Line runs through the city centre, separating the Republic of Cyprus (EU member) from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognised only by Turkey) since 1974 when Turkey invaded following a Greek-backed coup. The division is visible physically: the Ledra Street pedestrian crossing where Republic of Cyprus passport holders and tourists cross into the north is one of the most surreal borders in the world, a matter of a few hundred metres but representing a geopolitical reality so frozen that the old Nicosia Airport (abandoned in 1974) still has luggage on the carousels. The entire old city is encircled by the remarkably intact 16th-century Venetian walls (11 bastions built 1567–1570 and so sophisticated they were never breached by the Ottomans — it was the heat and disease that defeated the defenders). Nicosia rewards slow exploration: the Cyprus Museum with the Bronze Age Ayia Irini terracotta figurine collection (2,000 votive figures in one room), the Büyük Han (Great Inn, 1572) on the northern side, the Archbishop's Palace with its enormous Makarios III effigy, and the street food of Laiki Geitonia (traditional craftsmen's quarter) with halloumi sandwiches, loukoumades and commandaria wine (the world's oldest documented wine, produced in Cyprus since 800 BCE).
Nicosia's Venetian walls went up between 1567 and 1570, designed by the military engineer Giulio Savorgnan. He tore down the larger medieval circuit and redrew the city as an almost perfect circle about 5 km around, with 11 heart-shaped bastions and three gates. The Ottomans broke through in 1570, only weeks after the work was finished. Even so, the walls survive almost whole and still mark out the old town on both sides of the Green Line. The ramparts are open-air and free to walk at any hour, and the old moat is now gardens, car parks and sports grounds. Start at Famagusta Gate, which is now a municipal cultural centre. Entry is free, and it usually opens on weekdays around 10:00–13:00 and 17:00–20:00, though hours change with exhibitions. From there, follow the walls west past the Caraffa and Podocataro bastions to Eleftheria Square, where Zaha Hadid's curving concrete redesign wraps around the D'Avila Bastion. Cross at the Ledra Street checkpoint, which is open 24 hours and needs a passport or EU ID card. On the other side, head to Kyrenia Gate and the northern bastions, then walk over to Büyük Han, the 1572 Ottoman caravanserai. Stop there for a Turkish coffee, and try şeftali kebab at one of the grill houses nearby. Back in the south, the Shacolas Tower observatory on Ledra Street (about €2.50) lets you see the whole star-shaped outline from above. Insider tip: walk the southern stretch at dusk, when the golden limestone glows and the Laiki Geitonia lanes fill up with meze tavernas, where a full spread costs about €20–25 per person. Euros are accepted in the north, but paying in Turkish lira usually gets you better prices.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLedra Street earned the nickname "Murder Mile" during the EOKA campaign of 1955–59. In the intercommunal violence of 1963–64 it was cut in two by the Green Line, the ceasefire boundary that British officer Major-General Peter Young drew across a city map in green pencil. The pedestrian crossing finally opened on 3 April 2008. It is open 24 hours a day and costs nothing to use. Bring your passport or EU ID card. Greek Cypriot police glance at it, and a short walk further on, past the sandbagged, shuttered shopfronts of the UN buffer zone, the Turkish Cypriot booth scans it. Off-peak the whole crossing takes about five minutes. It's slower on Saturday mornings. On the south side the street is chain stores and frappé bars. North of the line it becomes Arasta, a covered bazaar lane of copperware, Lefkara-style lace and knock-off football shirts. Follow it to the Büyük Han, the Ottoman caravanserai Lala Mustafa Pasha built in 1572. Its courtyard cafés serve Turkish coffee for roughly 100–150 TL, with bowls of warm lokma dripping syrup. A few minutes east, the Selimiye Mosque occupies the Gothic cathedral of Saint Sophia, consecrated in 1326. Visitors are welcome outside prayer times if shoulders and knees are covered. For lunch, look in the backstreets towards the Bedesten for şeftali kebab, a grilled sausage wrapped in caul fat and served in pitta with parsley and onion. The north uses the Turkish lira. Euros are accepted almost everywhere but at a poor rate, so take lira from the ATMs along Arasta. Insider tip: customs on the way back limits you to 40 cigarettes and one litre of spirits, and the checks are real. Don't photograph soldiers or military posts on either side of the line.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCommissioned in 1572 by Lala Mustafa Pasha, the first Ottoman governor of Cyprus, a year after the conquest, the Büyük Han is the largest caravanserai on the island and its finest surviving Ottoman civil building. The builder's name was not recorded, but the plan follows the classic Anatolian model: a square courtyard enclosed by two storeys of arcaded stone rooms, 68 in all, with a small mescit (prayer room) raised over an ablution fountain at the centre. Merchants kept their animals and goods below and slept above. Under British rule the building served as the city prison and later as a shelter for the poor, until a long restoration finished in the early 2000s. Today the ground-floor rooms hold workshops selling lace, hand-painted ceramics, copperware and olive-oil soaps, and cafés fill the courtyard. Order a Cypriot coffee (roughly 80–120 TL) with lokum or a hellim pastry, or fresh lemonade in summer. Entry is free. The han is generally open daily from about 08:00 to 18:00, later in summer, and some shops close on Sundays. Hours change, so check locally. The currency is the Turkish lira, and euros are widely accepted at slightly worse rates. Take the stone stairs to the upper gallery. Looking down on the mescit's dome and the courtyard arches gives the best photographs, and it's the quietest spot at midday. On some Saturday mornings, local musicians play in the courtyard. The han stands in the old market quarter. The Selimiye Mosque (the Lusignan Cathedral of Saint Sophia, 1326) and the Bedesten are 100 m away, the covered Belediye Pazarı market is next door, and the smaller Kumarcılar Han is two minutes' walk. The Ledra Street crossing from the south is about ten minutes on foot, so bring your passport or ID card.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFounded in 1882 and housed since 1908 in a neoclassical building on Museum Avenue, the Cyprus Museum is the island's oldest and most important archaeological collection. It traces around 9,000 years of history. The Bronze Age rooms are its strongest section. Look for the Vounous clay bowl showing a ritual scene inside a sacred enclosure (c. 2000 BCE) and the red polished ware with its odd, lively shapes. The 12th-century-BCE bronze Horned God from Enkomi is a highlight in its own right. The earlier galleries hold the cross-shaped picrolite idols from the Chalcolithic period, about 5,000 years old. Further on is the most memorable display in the building: several hundred terracotta votive figures from the Ayia Irini sanctuary (c. 650–500 BCE), set out as Swedish archaeologists found them around the altar in 1929. The rest of the find is in Stockholm. The marble Aphrodite of Soli (1st century BCE) and the larger-than-life bronze of Septimius Severus are in the later rooms. Opening hours are usually Tuesday–Friday 08:00–18:00 and weekends 09:00–16:00, closed Mondays. Entry is €4.50. Hours change in winter and on holidays, so check the Department of Antiquities site before you go. Insider tip: arrive when it opens on a weekday. School groups come mid-morning, and the Ayia Irini room is best seen quietly. The museum faces the Municipal Gardens and Theatre, just outside the Venetian walls near Paphos Gate. Afterwards, walk ten minutes through the gate to Laiki Geitonia for halloumi, loukaniko sausage and a Cypriot coffee. You could also head along Ledra Street toward the Green Line crossing.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLaiki Geitonia ("folk neighbourhood") sits just inside the southern arc of Nicosia's Venetian walls, which were built in 1567. The quarter's lanes of 18th- and 19th-century houses were falling apart until the municipality began restoring them in the mid-1980s. The work followed the Nicosia Master Plan, a rare joint effort between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. Today the stone façades, timber balconies and bougainvillea hide a dense cluster of tavernas, most open daily from about 11:00 to 23:00. Order a full meze at €20–28 per person, usually with a two-person minimum. It arrives in waves of 15 to 20 plates. First come tahini, taramosalata, village salad and grilled halloumi. Next are koupes (bulgur shells stuffed with spiced minced meat) and loukaniko sausage. The meal ends with kleftiko, lamb slow-baked in a sealed clay oven. Pace yourself, because the best dishes come last. Finish with a glass of Commandaria for €4–6. This sweet wine is made from sun-dried Mavro and Xynisteri grapes in 14 villages on the southern slopes of the Troodos mountains. Its name comes from the Grande Commanderie of the Knights Hospitaller in the 12th century. The wine is often traced to the Cypriot sweet wine Hesiod described around 800 BCE, and it's widely cited as the oldest named wine still in production. Insider tip: KEO's St. John is the Commandaria most places pour. Ask whether they have a bottle from a small producer in Kalo Chorio or Zoopigi, which usually has deeper notes of raisin and carob. Before you eat, visit the free Leventis Municipal Museum on Ippokratous Street (Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–16:30). Afterwards, walk out to Eleftheria Square, which Zaha Hadid redesigned as a raised concrete platform over the old moat.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideJust inside the Venetian walls on the eastern side of the old town, Archbishop Kyprianou Square is the seat of the Church of Cyprus. The Archbishop's Palace, finished in neo-Byzantine style in 1960 as Cyprus became independent, stands next to the plainer Old Archbishopric of 1730. The Church still works from the palace, so you can't go inside. The main reason to come is the Byzantine Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation, which opened in 1982. It holds about 230 icons dating from the 9th to the 19th centuries. It also has the 6th-century apse mosaics of Panagia Kanakaria, which were looted from Lythrangomi after 1974 and won back through the courts, and the 15th-century Lysi frescoes, which came back from Houston in 2012. Allow about 90 minutes. The museum is usually open Monday to Friday 09:00–16:30 and Saturday 09:00–13:00, and closed on Sunday. Entry costs around €5, so check current details before you go. The huge 9-metre bronze statue of Makarios that once stood over the courtyard was moved to Throni, near Kykkos Monastery, in 2008. A smaller statue of the first president stands there now. Insider tip: go next door to St John's Cathedral, built in 1662. It is small and easy to miss. Its 18th-century frescoes cover every wall and include a rare cycle about the discovery of St Barnabas's tomb, which is how the Church of Cyprus kept its independence. Afterwards, walk through the restored stone lanes of Taht-el-Kale towards Famagusta Gate, or go west along Onasagorou Street for a halloumi-and-lountza sandwich and a plate of hot loukoumades.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideStrung along the valleys of the Troodos range, about an hour's drive west of Nicosia on the B9 via Astromeritis, ten Byzantine churches make up one of UNESCO's most compact medieval treasuries. Nine were listed in 1985, and Palaichori's Metamorphosis tou Sotiros was added in 2001. No named architect built them. Village masons did, and they later added steep timber roofs with flat tiles to shed mountain snow. The result is plain stone exteriors that look like barns but hold frescoes as good as anything painted in Constantinople. Start at Asinou (Panagia Phorbiotissa), near Nikitari. It was painted in 1105–06 for the magistros Nikephoros Ischyrios, and its Dormition and donor portrait rank among the finest Komnenian painting anywhere. It is open roughly 9:30–16:00 Monday to Saturday and 10:00–16:00 on Sunday, with entry by donation (about €2–3). Drive 20 minutes south to Kakopetria, a protected old quarter of mud-brick houses and wooden balconies above the Karkotis gorge. Just outside the village, Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis has frescoes spanning the 11th to 17th centuries (Tuesday to Saturday 9:00–16:00, Sunday 11:00–16:00, closed Monday). In neighbouring Galata, Panagia Podithou (1502) shows the Italian-influenced style that arrived under Venetian rule. For lunch, order grilled river trout at a riverside taverna in the old quarter, then Pitsilia loukanika sausage, soujoukos and a glass of zivania. Insider tip: hours change with the seasons and custodians sometimes step out at midday, so phone ahead or ask at the village kafeneio for the key-holder. Photography is not allowed inside.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Commandaria country sits on the southern slopes of the Troodos, about an hour's drive (roughly 80 km) southwest of Nicosia. It is one of the oldest named wine traditions still in production. Hesiod described a sweet Cypriot wine called *Nama* around 800 BCE. The current name comes from the Knights Hospitaller's Grande Commanderie at Kolossi, which exported it across medieval Europe. Legend has it that it was poured when Richard the Lionheart married Berengaria of Navarre in Limassol in 1191. Only 14 villages are allowed to use the name, which is protected as a PDO. They include Kalo Chorio, Zoopigi, Agios Mamas, Doros, Laneia and Silikou. The wine is made from native Xynisteri and Mavro grapes that are dried in the sun on rooftops and terraces in September, then fermented and aged for at least two years in oak. Most estates here are small family cellars in the stone village houses. They usually open for tastings from late morning until about 17:00 and close or cut their hours on Sundays and in August, so ring ahead. A tasting usually costs €5–15 and is often waived if you buy a bottle. A 500 ml Commandaria costs from about €12, and older reserves cost well over €30. Have it the local way, slightly chilled, with loukoumades, soujoukos (grape-must and almond sweets) or a plate of halloumi and lountza. In Doros and Laneia, look for the old wine presses and the pithoi, the large clay jars that were used for fermenting. Laneia also has painters' studios and a shaded café square. Insider tip: come in the second week of September, when grapes dry on the rooftops and several villages hold harvest festivals. For a more polished tasting room, Keo (founded 1927) and Loel (founded 1943), both near Limassol, have regular hours and English-language tours. --- I couldn't confirm that a winery called "Kourdaliotis" exists, and web search was blocked, so I couldn't check it. I didn't invent a founding year, architect, opening hours or prices for it. The text above covers the Commandaria region itself. Kourdali is a real village, but it's in the Solea valley, not the Commandaria zone. If you have a source for the winery, send it and I'll rewrite the entry around it.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLocals call Atatürk Square "Sarayönü", meaning "in front of the palace". The square stands on the site of the Lusignan and later Venetian governor's palace, which the Ottomans used as their seat of power until the British demolished it in 1904. At its centre is the Venetian Column, a grey granite shaft that the Venetians brought from the ruins of Salamis and put up in 1550. The Ottomans pulled it down. The British put it back up in 1915 and topped it with a copper globe where the Lion of St Mark once stood. Around the column you'll find the colonial-era law courts, the old post office and the small Sarayönü Mosque. The square is open around the clock, but it's liveliest from about 18:00 to 23:00, when office workers make way for families and backgammon players. Order a glass of çay (about 30–50 TL) with a plate of pistachio baklava or şam tatlısı (about 150–250 TL). Prices change quickly with the lira, and many places take euros at a poor rate. For something savoury, walk two minutes down Girne Caddesi for şeftali kebab. It's a Cypriot sausage wrapped in caul fat and grilled over charcoal, served in pitta with parsley and tomato. You'll hear Cypriot Turkish all around you. Its accent and vocabulary are noticeably different from the Turkish spoken in Istanbul. Insider tip: take the lift in the Saray Hotel, right on the square, up to its top-floor bar. A drink at sunset gives you a view over the minarets of Selimiye to the Kyrenia mountains, with the huge flag laid out on their slopes. Büyük Han (1572) is a five-minute walk away, and its courtyard cafés stay open late. The quieter Arabahmet quarter, with its Ottoman houses, lies just to the west. The Ledra Street crossing is open 24 hours; bring your passport.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideSalamis lies on the coast 8 km north of Famagusta (Gazimağusa), about 75 km from Nicosia. To get there from the south you cross at Ledra Palace or Agios Dometios. Bring your passport. If you rented your car in the south, you need to buy separate insurance at the checkpoint. Tradition says Teucer founded the city around 1100 BCE on his return from the Trojan War. No architect's name survives. Salamis became the most powerful kingdom on the island. After the earthquakes of 332 and 342 CE it was rebuilt and renamed Constantia, and it was abandoned after the Arab raids of the 640s. Start at the gymnasium, where re-erected marble columns line the palaestra. Next door are the baths, with fragments of mosaic and fresco. The theatre dates from the reign of Augustus and once held around 15,000 people; its lower tiers have been restored. Further in you'll find the Campanopetra basilica near the sea and the basilica of St Epiphanios. The site usually opens 08:00–19:00 in summer and 08:00–17:00 in winter. Entry is paid in Turkish lira, and the fee changes often with inflation (roughly 200–300 TL recently), so check the current price. You can combine the visit with the Royal Tombs 1 km west, where 8th-century BCE kings were buried with sacrificed chariot horses. The Monastery of St Barnabas nearby has an icon collection and a small archaeological museum. Afterwards, eat grilled fish, hellim and meze at the beach tavernas just north of the ruins, then swim from the sandy shore. Insider tip: arrive at opening time. There's little shade, and in the low morning light you'll have the columns to yourself before the tour coaches arrive from Kyrenia.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFamagusta was founded as Arsinoe by Ptolemy II around 274 BC. Its golden age came after 1291, when Christian merchants fleeing Acre turned it into one of the richest ports in the Levant. The Lusignan kings were crowned in the Cathedral of St Nicholas (1298–1328), whose French Gothic façade was modelled on Reims. In 1571 the Ottomans turned it into the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque. Entry is free outside prayer times, and scarves are provided. The Venetians rebuilt the 3 km walls from the 1490s, and the Martinengo Bastion is attributed to Giovanni Girolamo Sanmicheli. Othello Castle, the Lusignan citadel with the winged lion of St Mark over its gate, usually opens 09:00–19:00 in summer and closes at 16:00–17:00 in winter. Tickets cost about 250 TL. Walk from the Sea Gate past the Venetian Palace ruins and the Sinan Pasha Mosque to the twin Nestorian and Armenian churches in the quiet northwest corner. Varosha, south of the walls, has been fenced off since 1974. Since 2020 you can walk or cycle selected streets, roughly 08:00–17:30, for free, and bikes rent for about 100–150 TL. Photographing military zones is banned. For food, try lokum and kadayıf at Petek Pastanesi by the Sea Gate, or order şeftali kebab and grilled hellim in the cafés around Namık Kemal Square. Famagusta is in the Turkish-administered north, so bring your passport. Cross at Ledra Street in Nicosia, then take the hourly bus from the northern terminal (about 1 hr) and pay in Turkish lira. Insider tip: climb the ramparts near the Land Gate ravelin at sunset, when the cathedral's buttresses glow gold and Varosha's empty towers go dark on the skyline.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKyrenia Castle stands at the east end of Kyrenia's (Girne's) old harbour, about 25 km north of Nicosia. The Byzantines first fortified the site around the 7th century to fight off Arab raids. The Lusignans later extended it, and the Venetians rebuilt it from 1540 with the thick sloping walls and round gun towers you see today. They did it to resist cannon fire, but the Ottomans took the castle without a fight in 1570. Inside, you'll find the small 12th-century Byzantine chapel of St George and the tomb of Sadık Pasha. The highlight is the Shipwreck Museum. A sponge diver found the wreck in 1965, and a University of Pennsylvania team led by Michael Katzev raised it in 1967–69. It's a Greek merchant ship that sank around 300 BCE. About three-quarters of its pine hull survives, and it's shown alongside its cargo of roughly 400 amphorae of Rhodian wine and thousands of almonds. It's one of the best-preserved ships of its age anywhere. Opening hours are usually 09:00–19:00 in summer and 09:00–16:30 in winter. Tickets are paid in Turkish lira (around 400 TL for foreign visitors), and prices change often, so check at the gate. From Nicosia, cross at Ledra Palace or Metehan (bring your passport) and take a bus from the Kyrenia Gate area, about 40 minutes. Insider tip: arrive at opening, see the wreck before the tour groups, then walk the northeast ramparts for the classic view of the horseshoe harbour against the Pentadaktylos (Beşparmak) range. The harbour-front restaurants mainly charge for the view. For better food, head into the lanes behind the harbour for meze, grilled hellim and fresh fish, or go to Niazi's for full kebab. After that, see the carob warehouses, the Folk Art Museum and the Ağa Cafer Paşa Mosque, or drive up to St Hilarion Castle for sunset.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKyrenia (Girne in Turkish) lies 25 km north of Nicosia, in the Turkish Cypriot north, so you'll need your passport. By car the trip takes 35–45 minutes through the Agios Dometios/Metehan crossing. Hire cars from the south need separate insurance, which is sold at the checkpoint. The horseshoe-shaped harbour dates back to ancient times, but its current look comes from the Venetians. Around 1540 they rebuilt the Byzantine-Lusignan castle at its eastern end so it could withstand Ottoman artillery. Arrive before dusk to see the castle, open roughly 09:00–19:00 in summer and shorter hours in winter (check at the gate). Inside is the Shipwreck Museum, which holds the hull of a Greek merchant ship that sank around 300 BC. Then walk the quay, where old carob warehouses now house restaurants open from late morning until about midnight. Order the fish meze: grilled octopus, fried calamari, hellim, tahini and a whole sea bream or red mullet priced by weight. Budget around 1,500–2,500 TRY (€35–60) per person with local wine or Efes beer. Menus are often priced in pounds sterling as well, so check which currency you're paying in before you order. Insider tip: the front-row tables mostly serve tour groups. Better value is one lane back, near the Chrysopolitissa church and the Archangel Michael icon museum, and many places bring out free fruit and Turkish coffee at the end. After dinner, look south to the Kyrenia range, where the ridge-top St Hilarion Castle is often said to have inspired Disney's fairy-tale castles.
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