The Rough Guide to Cyprus 6th Edition (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

500 Pages·2009·13.33 MB·English

by  Rough Guides

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I SB N 978-1-85828-993-9
5 1 9 9 9
9 7 8 1 8 5 8 2 8 9 9 3 9
The Rough Guide to
Cyprus
written and researched by
Marc Dubin
NEW YORK • LONDON • DELHI
www.roughguides.com
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Contents
Colour section 1 North Nicosia and around
......................................... 275
Introduction ............................... 4
Kyrenia and the
Where to go ............................... 7 north coast........................ 297
When to go .............................. 12 8 Famagusta and the
Things not to miss ................... 15 Karpaz peninsula .............. 333
Basics 25 Contexts 365
Getting there............................ 27 1 History .............................. 367
Getting around......................... 36 2 The events of summer 1974:
Accommodation....................... 43 personal accounts ............ 414
Food and drink ........................ 48 3 Wildlife .............................. 423
Health ...................................... 53 4 Books................................ 439
Maps and place names............ 54 5 Films ................................. 446
Phones and internet access..... 57
The media ................................ 59 Language 447
Archeological sights, museums,
churches and mosques ......... 61 Greek ..................................... 449
Crime and personal safety ....... 62 Turkish ................................... 456
Festivals and public holidays ... 64 A Greek and Turkish food
Sports and outdoor activities... 67 glossary.............................. 460
Travel essentials ...................... 68 Glossary................................. 464
Guide 77 Travel store 467
The South
Introduction to the South ......... 78 Small print & Index 475
1 Larnaca and around............ 83
2 Limassol and around......... 115 Sacred art &
3 Páfos and the west ........... 145 architecture colour
4 The High Tróödhos............ 203 section following p.184
5 South Nicosia and around
......................................... 239
Traditional Cypriot
The North food colour section
Introduction to the North........ 269 following p.312
3
왗왗 Kyrenia harbour 왗 Yerakiés, the Tróödhos mountains
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| CONTENTS |
Introduction to
Cyprus
Cyprus, the Mediterranean’s third largest island after Sicily
and Sardinia, only emerged as a notionally independent
state on August 16, 1960. For the first time, following
centuries of rule by whatever empire or nation dominated
the eastern Mediterranean – including, from 1878 to 1960,
Great Britain – the islanders seemed to control their own
destiny. Such empowerment proved illusory: no distinctly
Cypriot national identity was permitted to evolve by the
island’s Orthodox Christian Greek and Muslim Turkish
communities. Within four years, tension between these
two groups had rent the society asunder, followed in 1974
by a political and ethnic division of the island imposed by
the mainland Turkish army.
However, calm now reigns on the island, and
for British visitors there’s a persistent sense of
déjà vu in Cyprus, perhaps more than with
any other ex-Crown colony. Pillar boxes still
display “GR” and “ER” monograms near zebra
crossings; grandiose colonial public buildings
jostle for space with vernacular mud-brick and
Neoclassical houses; Debenhams, Next, Nando’s, Starbucks, M&S, KFC,
Pizza Hut and McDonald’s are all present in the South’s largest towns; and
of course driving is on the left. Before the recent founding of universities
4 in both South and North, higher education was pursued abroad, preferably
in the UK, and English – efectively the second language in the South – is
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| INTRODUCTION | WHERE TO GO | WHEN TO GO
Restoration
accommodation
The rapid urbanization of
Cyprus since the 1950s
has led to the wholesale
abandonment of many
attractive hill villages,
particularly in Páfos and
Limassol districts. Since
the late 1980s, a number
of stone-built rural houses
of different sizes have
been restored as unique
accommodation. Facilities
range from small cottages
with perhaps two studio
units to rambling complexes,
widely spoken. Despite the bitterness
essentially small inns, around
of the independence struggle against a shared courtyard with a
the UK, most is forgiven (if not exactly pool. Traditional architectural
forgotten) a generation or so later. features, such as fireplaces
Cyprus struggles to compete in allure and soaring arches in the
main room, are usually
with more exotic, airline-poster desti-
preserved. The idea is that
nations, yet the place grows on you – as
guests will both interact
evidenced by the huge expat/immigrant
socially with the remaining
population in the South, mostly British villagers and spend locally,
but also central and eastern European rather than down at the
and south Asian. The beaches, which coastal mega-resorts.
tend to be small, scattered coves on the
south coast, or longer, dunier expanses
on north-facing shores, are the focus
of many trips, but there’s more than
enough to hold your interest inland.
Horizons are defned by one of two
mountain ranges: the convoluted
massif of the Tróödhos, with numerous
spurs and deep valleys, and the wall-
like escarpment of the Kyrenia hills,
seemingly sculpted of papier-mâché.
Archeology bufs, wine-tasters, fower-
snifers, bird-watchers and mountain
bikers are particularly well catered for, 5
though state-of-the-art nightlife and
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| INTRODUCTION | WHERE TO GO | WHEN TO GO
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cultural diversions can be thin on the ground outside Nicosia, Limassol and
Ayía Nápa, in keeping with the predominantly forty-to-sixty-something
clientele, and the island’s enduring provincialism. This has both cause and
efect in the overwhelming presence of the package industry, which has
efectively put at least two of the bigger resorts plus numbers of hotels of-
limits to independent travellers. But for an undemanding, reasonably priced
6 and reliably sunny family holiday most months of the year, Cyprus is still
a good bet.
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Where to go
ith the mutual isolation of South and North, you formerly
had to choose which side of Cyprus to visit on any given
trip. All this changed radically in April 2003, when the North
Wsuddenly opened the “border” (nobody in the South uses the 7
term other than in inverted commas, as the present situation is viewed
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| INTRODUCTION | WHERE TO GO | WHEN TO GO
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as an interim one pending any defnitive
Fact file
peace settlement). Disinformation is still
• Cyprus is the eastern- promulgated by interested parties, but in
most island in the efect EU nationals with proper ID are
Mediterranean, with a free to cross the line in either direction
surface area of 9251
and stay as long as they wish; see p.35 for
square kilometres (3572
all pertinent details.
square miles). The total
population is about a The package industry remains geared to
million, with 650,000 Greek taking you to one or other side of the island,
Orthodox, Greek-speaking and either portion has plenty to keep you
islanders, 80,000 Sunni
occupied. When you’ve had your fll of
Muslim, Turkish-speaking
the South’s busiest beaches east of sleepy
natives, and roughly
250,000 foreign-born Larnaca, there’s the popular hill village
immigrants or seasonal of Páno Léfkara, unique sacred art at the
residents, although there Byzantine churches of Áyios Andónios
has been no island-wide
and Angelóktisti or the nearby Lusignan
census since 1960. After
“Chapelle Royale”, plus the atmospheric
1974 Cyprus was divided
into two zones: the South, Muslim shrine of Hala Sultan Tekke to
comprising 68 percent of the west. Ayía Nápa, in the far south-
the land and predominantly east, briefy ranked as a Mediterranean
Greek Cypriot-inhabited,
clubbing destination second only to Ibiza,
and the North, largely
and is still the liveliest summer-spot on
populated by Turkish
Cypriots and an undeter- the island. Beyond functional Limassol,
mined number of settlers the Crusader tower of Kolossi guards
from mainland Turkey. The vineyards as it always has, while ancient
capital of both regions is
Kourion sprawls nearby atop seaside
Nicosia.
clifs, which subside at the sandy bays of
• The Southern republic
Pissoúri, Paramalí and Evdhímou. Inland,
is a stable democracy, with
rolling hills shelter the Krassokhoriá or
regular, keenly contested
elections, and since “Wine Villages”, many of these attractively
May 2004 a member of stone-built and little changed outwardly
the EU. The president is
over the past century-plus.
head of state; there is no
prime minister. The House
[The Cypriot] is entering in
of Representatives has
56 seats; 24 more are thousands that trough – of how many
reserved under the 1960 generations? – between peasant
constitution for Turkish-
honesty and urban refinement. “To be
Cypriot deputies who have
civilised,” a Nicosia friend told me,
not, however, occupied
“our people must first be vulgar. It
them since 1963. Instead
they sit in the North’s is the bridge between simplicity and
8 50-seat assembly. culture.”
Continued opposite... Colin Thubron
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| INTRODUCTION | WHERE TO GO | WHEN TO GO