NICOSIA

06 – 07 April 2024

Having had our beach day in Ayia Napa cut short by a flat tyre, we rearranged our itinerary for Day 3 to include a couple of extra beachy things. Not hard to do by taking a jog down to Larnaca’s own blue flag Makenzy Beach and then adding a first stop in Pyla, 20 minutes down the coast, onto our road trip for a beachfront brunch.

As we entered the sleepy beachy town, we were drawn to a place called Gregory’s Coffee & Greek Bakery. We had high hopes there was a golden thread in the similarity of name to the brilliant Gregg’s experiences we had had in Newcastle and Belfast.

Grabbing the second-last available table, we soon had flaky Greek pastries in hand. A spinach and feta for authenticity and a bacon Stromboli (a pie that tasted like a pizza stuffed with bacon) for good measure. Basking in the moderate morning Mediterranean sun and peeping over flaky-pastry pies at the glistening sea was a worthy consolation for the circumstances that had led us there.

Back on the road, we set sights on Lympia; chosen for no particular reason other than a road trip necessitating stops and its position halfway along our short drive for the day.

Sadly there was little to see in the small suburban town so we followed the road sign to neighbouring Dali, which promised archeological ruins and an accompanying museum.

Two for two, we found both to be closed on Saturdays, much like we had missed the operating hours of the ruins and museum in Larnaca. Clearly Cyprus was for more fastidious travel planners than us in order to foresee such things.

With only 27km left to Nicosia, try as we might, there was not a place of interest to stop en route. We thought we might stop in “Lefkosia”… only to find that this was the alternate name for Nicosia – and seemed to be used interchangeably. A quick Google revealed that Nicosia was a Latin and English name used for the city post the medieval crusades. Lefkosia / Lefkosa were the traditional Greek and Turkish names respectively. Interesting.

We arrived at our destination a couple of hours ahead of schedule. The Kipros Accommodation hotel was, well, accommodating of our early arrival and showed us to our complimentary parking and then to our suite.

With a little extra time on our hands, we consolidated our map and Google searches to define a plan. We had the info on the stops on our intended walking tour the next morning, so mapped a route that would fill in the gaps of what else we could see and do in Nicosia.

This would be a short Nicosia walking tour of that would include the Liberty Monument, the UN buffer zone and the Famagusta Gate, as well as a smattering of religious buildings and museums.

We had chosen our hotel for its location, which paid off immediately. Hitting the streets, we were one road away from the famous Ledra pedestrian street, which took us right to the historical landmarks we wanted to see.

We were not really surprised to find that all the museums in Nicosia were already closed – some at midday and others not open on weekends at all – and again mused that dream job would be as a museum custodian in Cyprus. A 30-hour work week sounded like a winning plan!

Having fulfilled the possible cultural requirements, we were able to commit ourselves to a late lunch. Being so close to the Turkish border justified a donner kebab. We were quite smug sitting opposite the McDonald’s and the Starbucks with our legit authentic (massive!) meal at O Salonikios Gyros Stavros. Lovin’ every bite of fresh chicken and pork dripping with creamy garlic sauce and crunching from the salad garnish.

Finally finished and fully-fuelled, we were ready to approach the other side of Ledra. To our surprise, a couple of hundred metres down the road was the border crossing. And it was a free pass only requiring a flash of a passport. Which we happened to be carrying. So we went to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

It wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Besides a lively market and handful of grill house restaurants, it didn’t have much of a vibe. We did a cursory wander around and then passed back across the border.

Back up the length of Ledra, we emerged at the far end to find a fabulous recreation area. The city of Nicosia had cleverly uplifted the centre of town at the base of the walls of the original medieval city.

Eleftheria (Liberty) Square now boasted ultra-modern chrome and glass bridge, ramps and walkways from the street level down to a streamlined and cultivated garden below with pretty water features and outsized surfboard-shaped benches for people to relax and enjoy the space. There were pop-up stalls under the bridge selling clothes and accessories, and music piped through the speakers. With the acoustics of the partially enclosed space, the energy was palpable.

Since we had been on our feet for hours and done more thousands of steps, we decided to take advantage of our hotel being so close to take a load off for bit before taking on the evening.

Googling What To Do in Nicosia revealed that there was a Blazin’ Vibes Street Festival at Eleftheria Square that night. What a win!

Emerging from the hotel, it was a quick trot down the road and round the corner. The Square was transformed after dark, with submerged lighting creating a literal glow around the whole area.

DJs had taken to the stage under the bridge so there was a bass beat drawing people in their droves down to the festival area.

There were more pop-up stalls, a big cocktail bar had been set up and there were people dancing and having a good time. Such fun.

We mingled and window-shopped, but not being cocktail folk, were not in for the long haul.

We were thirsty though, so headed into the kiosk opposite the festival area. The shopkeep was belting out classic Metallica so we lingered longer than necessary while buying our take-away drinks, amused that we were having more of a party in the mini-mart than at the mega-party!

SUNDAY

Chris had found a guided walking tour of the DMZ and UN Buffer Zone online and although it said tickets were no longer available – which we took to mean sold out – we thought we would take our chances and pitch up anyway. With tip-based tours, people often don’t arrive and we could make up for the shortfall.

We were at the UN Checkpoint at 10h00 as required…. But there was nobody there. We waited 15 minutes and then gave up.

Now we had the whole of Sunday to kill since we’d put all our eggs in the walking tour basket. It was supposed to be 3 hours, and stimulate the ‘what next’ activities for the afternoon based on areas of particular interest and/or guide recommendations.

No point crying over spilt milk though. We did a quick Google for alternatives and soon realised that it was Sunday – a big roast lunch day in many cultures – and we had not yet eaten.

We decided to find a nice wine warm for a leisurely lunch excursion.

Santa Irene Winery had rave reviews for its buffet and wine tastings, so the die was cast and we were soon off in the rental car.

It was wonderful to exit the city (even as tame as it was compared to our hometown and all its urban chaos) and enter the countryside, into the more mountainous region.

I will admit to being concerned as the digital thermometer on the dashboard dipped below 20 degrees. In our haste, we’d jumped in the car still in T-shirts and shorts, not packing any warmer layers.

Although quite chilly and now starting to drizzle, it was warmer in the winery building. We were the first to arrive for the lunch sitting, which was served in a large hall with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, offering spectacular views of the surrounding area.

We were advised that we were too early and the buffet was not yet ready. We could, however, use the time to sample a few of the wines to decide what to have with lunch. Splendid use of time!

We were led to the large L-shaped stone counter. Our enthusiastic sommelier pulled bottle after bottle out of fridges, off shelves and from far reaches on the counter. He expertly screwed out corks and rubber re-sealed bottles as he seamlessly trickled tasters into glasses, shared wisdom about the variant and educated about the local grape, Mavra.

It was a lot on an empty belly! But we enjoyed it immensely and, as an added bonus, the owner came over to talk to us and was delighted that we were South African as he’d lived in Pietermaritzburg for many years, and his son still did. Small as the world is, Christian’s sister’s family was friendly with the son and his family!

Our sommelier endorsed our choice of red wine for the lunch and was so pleased that we ordered another 4 bottles to take with us that he spontaneously offered us a private viewing of the production cellar below the tasting room. There would be a group tour after lunch, but narrated in Greek and he wanted us to take the full story away with us and our collection. It was quite a bit colder downstairs so thankfully we could do the walk-through at pace in our ill-suited attire.

Quite giddy from the wine and the experience, it was finally time for lunch.

The buffet lived up to promise, with a wide range of Greek and Cypriot traditional food. We feasted on roasted lamb and pork souvlaki, a delicious pork and onion stew which I vowed to remember the name of (and have, of course, forgotten), light and tender calamari, cod and another white flaky fish of sorts, roast potato wedges and pasta dish that was similar to lasagne but with layers of macaroni, pork mince and a thick layer of béchamel on the top.

As full as we were, we still had the cheek to sample ALL of the desserts, which included two milk tart type things, cheesecake, chocolate cake, crème caramel, little doughnut/koeksuster crunchy syrupy balls and, our favourite, orange cake.

First to arrive and almost last to leave, we virtually rolled out of Saint Irene.

The 50 minute drive home was full of ideas about what to do with our evening – that would most certainly not include another meal!

Returning to our hotel, we allowed ourselves a couple of hours of feet-up to let the massive meal settle. But then it was back out into the Nicosia night for a nosey around.

Almost as busy as Saturday night, Ledra was swarming with people enjoying a meal, a drink or a coffee in any of the many restaurants.

MONDAY

Closing off the sightseeing checklist, we returned (on foot, now easily navigating the twists and turns of the unsignposted city) to the Struggle Museum that we had tried to see on the first day.

It revealed that the history of Cyprus began in 1500BC through the Venetian and Roman Empires. Cyprus was then absorbed into the Ottoman Empire in 1546 and then ceded to Britain in 1878.

The British tried in 1915 to force the union of Cyprus and Greece to bring Greece into the First World War; Greece refused and maintained its neutrality. Similarly the British offered once again at the start of the Second World War, but retracted the offer once Greece was overrun by the Axis Powers.

Post WWII, many territories were keen on independence from the Commonwealth, as was Cyprus. They made a couple of applications to Great Britain to allow them to join union with Greece; both refused. They then organised a paramilitary force called EOKA to start campaigning civil disobedience, as well as ambushes and attacks on the British occupationary forces in Cyprus. The fighting continued from 1955-1959, when Cyprus finally got its independence (and did not form the union with Greece).

It looks from the exhibits in the museum to have been quite bloody skirmishing. The displays include numerous graphic boards showing the dead and dying up close, complete with emotively labelled names, eg ‘Hero XYZ who died after being tortured in {date}’.

There was a primary school tour in the museum at the same time as us and interestingly the small children were not sheltered from viewing the boards with the close-ups of the bullet-ridden bodies, the glassy eyes staring lifelessly from the corpses or gruesome dismembered victims of bomb explosions. Hopefully the brutal honesty of the destruction of war encourages the children of Nicosia to create a more peaceful future for their beautiful homeland.