Cyprus – Kyrenia

On my 7 day trip to Cyprus I also took in the following places.

Click on the link for each place to read my post on them.

I arrived in Larnaca and based myself here, then made day-trips out by car, to see each site.

Larnaca – I click here. 

Nicosia – click here

Paphos – click here

Limassol – click here

Day trip from Larnaca to Kyrenia

So, my plan was to visit Kyrenia (in Greek) also called Girne (in Turkish) in the northern part of Cyprus. This area is under the administration of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

I planned my route and plotted it through one of the three crossings near Nicosia. I had already driven to Nicosia the day before and it took only 45 mins and I had used the excursion as a pre-run so I knew where to go to cross the border …. or so I thought.

The route said it would take around 1 hour 20 mins to get to Kyrenia which was an easy drive time for me. I planned I may have to wait 30 mins at the border for …. Well, who knows what, but best to factor it in so it’s not a surprise.

The southern side of the border route was mostly by fast superbly maintained dual carriageway road that I drove on yesterday. I had no idea what the road conditions, once across the border, would be like. I knew that side was much less affluent, so I assumed conditions would not be so good.

I had driven in Turkey before and knew driver’s motoring standards were not good so assumed it would be the same in Northern Cyprus. Driving in the south was as good as home and it was pleasurable and easy. All this is preconceived assumptions I know, but I had to be prepared.

My plan was to drive to Nicosia, go across the border, see what I wanted around and in Kyrenia and cross back around 7pm before it got dark – I don’t like night driving abroad.

Funny event on the way to Kyrenia

So, I found the crossing on the map in Nicosia and once in the city outskirts headed for it. It was the Ledra Palace crossing. It’s called as such because this is where the once opulent Ledra Palace Hotel sits. Today its quite rundown and not even a hotel.

As I drove towards it I couldn’t really see the checkpoint. I could see the pavement to one side with people walking to and from the booth at the end for passport control.

There were no other cars so I thought this was easy and I’d get through easily.  I noticed the road had a deliberate curvy chicane and a tall wall was now separating the two sides of the road. I slowly crawled along my side of the road, concerned I could not see the check point.

Eventually I was level with the pedestrian control booth over on the other side of the road. No signs or instructions as to where to go or what to do, I looked over at the booth as if wanting to get some direction. Nothing, so I stopped.

It was not obvious where the control barrier was on this road, that now was about to curve to one side again. I restarted and slowly went forward. Suddenly I heard someone shouting and two people were rushing at me from afar. Expecting my tyres to be shot out or wrestled from the car as I had clearly done something wrong, I stopped the car and waited.

The two guys came over and started shouting at me in Greek. I apologetically said I don’t speak Greek so they spoke to me in English. “You can’t bring a car through here” they said. I was confused. There was a perfectly good road leading up to the area, no signs saying no entry, no instructions etc so I asked why not. Now a few pedestrians had stopped to watch the ensuing performance and the booth people lent out of the windows to watch, I was the centre of attention.

They saw my clear confusion and explained that this is a pedestrian crossing only, not for vehicles.

Ok, I now understood the lack of other vehicles and was expecting to be arrested for attempting to illegally drive across the border. I also saw the look of disbelief on their faces. Had I caused and international occurrence, would I be on the news that night?

Luckily, despite their concerns they just saw me as a stupid tourist without a clue as to what he was doing – true, but in my defence, I saw no “cars not permitted” or “no entry” signs on what was a perfectly good continuation of the main road to the curvy section. I later realised the curvy section was for UN vehicles to go through and curvy as a deterrent to anyone to pick up speed to force their way across the border.

I asked where do I cross therefore with a car and they pointed away in the distance to the left and said a name in Greek that I did not catch. I apologised, reversed and moved away from the crossing back onto the main road. I pulled over once well away and put in for a border road crossing into my phone sat nav and saw it was a few kilometres away on the edge of the city.

Phew, no shot-out tyres or arrest and now feeling very embarrassed, I turn the wheel and headed for the crossing. After a few minutes I was chuckling to myself after the embarrassment had dissipated. What a story to tell my mates back home – that I had just attempted to illegally drive across an international border!

Crossing the Green Line Border

You may or may not know but this area was annexed by Turkey in 1974 when they invaded from the north in order to set up a separate Muslim community from the Christian south. The invasion was as a result of an attempted coup d’état by the Greek Cypriots and to annex the country to Greece.

Eventually the north declared independence from the south with the border now being the old Green Line set up by the UN.

The unique fact about this is that no country in the world recognises the north as a separate country, not even the UN, (apart from Turkey, who invaded to set it up). It is seen as an occupation of part of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus.

Here’s the Republic of Cyprus’s official govt website, that explains more about it and the restrictions/info. Click here for the website

All this thus posed a unique problem for me.

I had a hire car registered in southern Cyprus. Southern registered cars can cross over into the north and back but northern cars are not permitted into the south. The car hire company would not allow me to take it to the north unless it was specially insured, which they do not provide.

I read up on how I could do this and it is very difficult to get insurance in the south for northern travel on a car hire. There was one way.

At the vehicle crossing point there is an office that allows you to fill in a form to insure the car for 3 days under a Turkish company and insurances laws. It’s a fixed fee, not too expensive but not cheap as it is for three days and I only needed it for the day. I decided to believe the reviews and would do it.

At the border, there was a small queue. They checked my passport and asked for the insurance documents to drive in the north. I said I wanted to buy the 3-day insurance, so after passport control, handed me a form to fill out and directed me to nearby parking lot to fill it out and then return back to that building with it complete.

The form was fairly basic – car reg number, driver details, where I was going etc. I filled it in, returned to the office, joined a slow queue of people . They queue was being processed by officers who were more interested in conversations between themselves and playing around than attending to waiting customers. I had seen this from Turkish officials the day before at the Turkish control point so it was expected.

The official glances at the form, vigorously stamped it several places as if it was so important, tore off their copy and passed me my copy back. They then asked for payment – cash only no credit card (wonder how much goes straight into their pocket?). No receipt was given, despite me asking for it as proof of payment. I got a stern look and the stamp was pointed at on the form and I was told that was sufficient! Okay …… how to make money at a control point I thought to myself.

I was waved off and that was it. I was insured to drive in the north. No check on the car or that it was a hire car or not. Pretty lackadaisical, but it got me through the border, so let’s leave it at that.

Differences between north and south Cyprus

Once across the border the differences are immediately noticeable.

The roads are less well maintained than the crisp clean ones in the south. Garbage is seen on the verges and junctions are less pristine (some needing repairs to kerbs etc.

Once in towns the roads are worse, cars park haphazardly, lots of public zones in Turkish residential areas overgrown with weeds (not however in the tourist areas). Buildings are often left unfinished for what looks like years, and there is a feeling that areas have known better days.  While streets and buildings are ok-ish, there has clearly been little upkeep over the years.

They also have their own flag, quite different from the South’s one, having similatities to the Turkish flag.

I saw donkeys being used to transport goods and people generally more dishevelled and less affluent than in the south. In the vilages I passed through stores were basic, with a distinct lack of more up-market facilities ie hairdressers, banks, electronics stores. I saw lots of plain grocery stores and car reapirs pkaces, even a few abandoned rusting car wrecks on the kerbside.

The big statement as you approach the mountain ridge that runs near to the coast is a huge Republic of Northern Cyprus flag etched into the sloping ground ahead of you. It must be half a kilometre long by its size and is a clear statement about independence by the community here.

It really did feel that the southern part had more Greek characteristics and the northern part more Turkish – obvious I suppose, given that that is exactly their influences.

St. Hilarion Castle

You are clearly driving towards a long high mountain range that rises as if pushed up from the ground by underground forces. It is almost cliff-like in its appearance and there is a narrpw top ledge with a then equally impressive drop to the sea on the other side. This geographical feature is a clear wall of mountain between the inland area of Northern Cyprus and the Med Sea on the other side.

On the Nicosia to Kyrenia road, there is suddenly a sign for the castle. A turnoff along a less well maintained road will bring you to the rough surface car park at the base of the mountain range.

The castle is not named after the more well-known St Hilarion but after a 10^th Century Monk who lived here and set up a hermitage monastery where the castle now stands.

The site was an ideal place to control the mountain pass on the road between Kyrenia and Nicosia, both important cities from teh 14th Century. It also served as an excellent look-out post over the Mediterranean Sea for any seafaring invaders.

With this in mind, the 11^th Century Byzantines set up a series of defensive castles along the mountain ridge. The castles at Buffavento and Kantara were also part of this defensive line.

In the 14^th Century the French Lusignan Dynasty of occupiers further extended its defensive capabilities.

What remains of the castle today is mainly what the Venetians left it as, after it was mainly dismantled and abandoned in the 15^th Century. However, vast areas do still remain relatively intact.

As you approach the castle from the lower road, it is, at first, difficult to make out the structure and walls. At first, I thought I had miscalculated this place and it was going to be just a pile of ruins as I couldn’t see anything.

The walls and defences actually blend in with the mountain edge and top. A similar coloured stone was used and the walls run along the curvy edges, along the mountain cliffs.

It also isn’t obvious until you get up close after a short hill walk from the car park. Then you can make out the wall shapes and entrance area. It is pretty well naturally camouflaged.

The castle is in three sections or wards, to give then their correct miltary/architectural name. The lower two were mainly for the soldier’s accommodation, cattle pens, and a small community to trade and live.

This may not be so obvious at ground level so wait until you are at the top to be able to look down on the design and it will be a lot clearer.

So, in through the first gate in the high beige coloured stone walls and you enter a series oof long upward sloping covered walkways. I guess this restricted whoever was coming in so a huge mob would be reduced to almost dual file which could be easily repelled.

As you climb yet more walkways and series of steps, you become aware of how the lay of the building closely follows that of the mountainside.

The almost constant upward climb is not for the faint hearted. Even though I’m fairly fit, I had to rest several times as I explored due to the inclines. There was even a sign at the entrance advising that physical exertion is needed to navigate the site. It did make me wonder how the original inhabitants endured this, with these constant inclines and declines whenever they moved around the castle.

Several large rooms still remain somewhat intact. A room clearly built in a traditional church format is the chapel and another clearly a guardroom or communal area.

Battlements can be seen in several areas and the line of the outer wall is still there, even though due to its disrepair you can’t presently walk along it.

The views do give you a good indication of how this castle dominated the area and especially controlled one of the few access roads over the mountains and down into Kyrenia.

Wide, open pathways then invite you to climb even higher within the castle grounds.

Much of the highest ward where the royals lived is in ruins. The high walls, that once held two storey buildings with windows, are there but the interior parts have been demolished.

As I said before, when you reach the residential Royal areas, you can look down to the wards below (I could see where I had parked my car). Then I could see the enclosure nature of the wards and what would have been fields for the animals.

Once at the very top, there are quite precarious areas to explore. Huge drop-downs have the smallest of guardrails. The exposed, rough stonework on the floors also make the pathways very uneven and easy to lose your footing, (as I did several times). so be careful where you walk.

One side gives you views of the mountain summit rocks and the maturally growing vegetation and trees. The area here is actually very picturesque and untouched.

Walk over to the other side and you get stupendous views down what feels like a sloping cliff edge to the nearby town of Kyrenia -or I suppose I should call it by its Turkish name of Girne now we are in Turkish controlled Northern Cyprus.

It was bit hazy today but I could make out the town below and the vast expanse of the Mediterranean rolling off to the distant horizon. Turkey lies about 40 km directly across that sea.

Today was a pleasant but not too hot a day for this jaunt of exercise. I would not want to do this trek in the full heat of a Summer sun. I thus warn you to be aware that you need a reasonable amount of fitness to do these climbs (on steps but there are hundreds of them), take water with you as there are no facilities here and wear stout shoes for the uneven pathways

However, you will be rewarded with an outstanding panorama from the top, the likes of which you don’t get on many Mediterranean islands.

A little bit about Kyrenia

Kyrenia really started around 1300 BC and was founded by two Greeks called Cepheus and Praxandrus. They arrived here after being involved in the Trojan War. For whatever reason, they decided to name their city after their own city in Greece.

Along came the Romans and founded the castle in the 1^st century AD, where the enlarged one still stands today. It was a prosperous town, enjoying the Med’ trade routes. By the 9^th Century AD the castle had protected it to the degree that it was a large, expanding, important trading city.

The Lusignans (who enlarged St Hilarion castle as we saw earlier) also expanded the town, especially as it had fought off every attempt to conquer it thus far.  They enlarged the castle, built a wall and towers around the town, and extended the fortifications to the harbour.

The Venetians enlarged  the castle further in 1489 with larger, thicker towers and walls that could withstand the new threat of cannonballs from gunpowder shots.

It fared well but was eventually taken over by the Ottoman Turks in 1571

Jump forward after uninterrupted prosperity to 1831 and we find the city’s Muslim population only slightly numbering higher than the Christian community. They both lived together in harmony and it only turned to being slightly more Christian in population when the British took the island over from the Ottomans.

By 1914 the population was only around 30% Muslim.

In the 1960s and 70s the town became a focus of the holiday trade for internationals and Cypriots alike, new infrastructure, buildings and a better road to Nicosia all helped in Kyrenia’s economy

When Turkey invaded in 1974 and took over the north of the island things changed dramitically.. The Turkish army landed a few kms from Kyrenia and quickly took the city. Most of the Greek Cypriot inhabitants fled or were forcibly removed to the south.

Kyrenia suffered badly during the invasion and it wasn’t until 2001 that a bustling tourism trade re-emerged with new hotels, bar, nightlife and general expansion of a beach, sun and leisure themed trade.

From 2010 this tourism was mainly focused on Turkish holidaymakers principally via ferries from the mainland. Due to the continuing division of the island most non-Turkish holidaymakers today arrive at Larnaca airport and are bussed through the Green Line to the northern resort areas.

Kyrenia Harbour area

Within the city, this is probably its most famous area. The old buildings surrounding the picturesque harbour are certainly atmospheric and it is a busy zone full of mainly bars and restaurants with many of the floors of the harbour buildings being small hotels and BnB’s.

The area can seem over touristy as the outdoor terraces of table and chairs have disproportionally taken over the promenades and walk ways. In fact in several areas the pavements have become unregulated extensions of restaurants and it thus feels cramped and hard to pass by between the masses of terraces.

It doesn’t help that the tables and chairs are often white tacky plastic ones and the umbrella canopies filled with drink advertising. I felt what could have been styled as a pretty traditionally furnished leisure area with a backdrop of historic buildings had been reduced to an overcrowded zone with cheap chairs, tables and canopies to make a fast buck, spoiling the possible historical atmosphere.

I didn’t linger here but moved round the marina area filled with numerous small fishing boats. A few large motorised boats were here to in one section but I was pleased to see sail yachts that were clearly used for off-shore waters

You can walk the whole harbour/marina in its semi-circular shape in 10 mins.

It leads out to the long concrete quayside that juts out into the sea protecting the harbour. Walk along here and there are numerous people fishing both directly into the sea and the harbour area.

Over by the castle side of the marina were sea-venturing, traditional Gulet Turkish boats, no doubt used as pleasure craft for day trips along the coast.

Kyrenia Castle

As I mentioned before, the present-day castle we see today, is the enlarged and heavily fortified one built by the Venetians in 1549. A Roman, a 7^th Century Byzantine, a Crusader and a French Lusignan castle had stood here before. Each was demolished or adapted/enlarged to make the next generation castle. The ottomans, when they took it over in 1571 largely left it as it is today.

Inside there is a 12^th Century Chapel, made by using/adapting Roman columns.

Under British rule from 1878 it was used as a Police barracks and training school. It then housed prisoners from the riots and civil unrest in the 1950’s and even a military barracks in the 1960’s.

Today it is a museum and holds an assortment of local archaeological finds. The basement contains dungeons, storage rooms and what was the gunpowder room. Above there are vaulted ceilings, the old stables, guardrooms, prison rooms and the Royal quarters.

You can even climb the stairs to look out from the battlements and see over the harbour area.

In a room leading off from the courtyard there is an interesting Shipwreck Museum. Its main feature is a Greek merchant ship from the 4^th Century BC. It is 47 feet long and made from Aleppo pine, sheathed in lead. It even contained original wine amphorae from the Greek islands when it was discovered in 1965.

It was wrecked in a storm outside Kyrenia harbour and today rests in a special, controlled environment display.

Walking up to the exterior the huge, thick, high-walls tower above you from the street. The exterior is perfectly restored, mainly because it was never demolished in an attack.

This heavy, massive castle cannot fail to impress, it totally dominates the seafront and harbour area. Its round bastions and towers at each corner clearly show its defensive capabilities and would be an adversary to anyone attempting to overthrow the city.

Bellapais Abbey

To get to Bellapais Abbey I had to return to my car and drive around 25 mins uphill and to the east of Kyrenia.

Although the Abbey is in the village of Bellapais, it felt more like I was just driving to the outer limits of the city, through the continuous stream of housing that makes up this strip of land near the sea.

You arrive at the town centre and look out for the Abbey’s car park signs. It is actually quite a large car park and well maintained (unusual in this part of Cyprus). The car park sits at the bottom of the huge walls of the nearby Abbey.

The name Bellapais is thought to come from two derivations. A corruption of the French name Abbaie de la Pais (“Abbey of Peace”) by Italians, when they overtook the island and reinterpreted it as Bella Paese “Beautiful Land”.

Christians were known to have settled this area in the 7^th and 8^th Century so there was a precedent for a religious building to be constructed here.

The custodians of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem fled and settled here in 1187 when Jerusalem was taken over by Muslim forces under Saladin.

The French Lusignans (there’s that name again!), founded a Monastery here in 1198 called the Abbey of St Mary of the Mountain. It was colloquially called the White Abbey after the White Canons religious order who resided here.

Throughout the 13th and 14^th Century cloisters, a refectory, living quarters were added to expand the building. The invading Genoese in the 14^th Century attacked and stripped the Abbey of anything saleable.

In the 16^th Century the Ottomans allowed it to be the only Christian church on the island but it was severely neglected and known as the Greek Church of Cyprus. Villagers even used its stones for rebuilding their homes.

In1878 the British used most of it as a hospital.

There is a small fee to walk around it today. You need to imagine it in its glory day as the ruins are immense.

Huge walls, several storeys high, still exist but not all of it remains intact.

Various small towers, external walls and facades still exist today. Although their slender high walls seem to defy gravity as to how they can still stand seemingly unsupported by adjoining walls or a roof.

Parts of the cloisters still survive and the gloriously ornate arches show how impressive the area must have been. One section of the cloisters still has its roof intact. You can thus throw your imagination onto the other 3 sides and envision how beautiful it would have looked in its day.

Several sections have enormously tall walls, still with the windows and stone decorations in them. You can see the various levels of three storeys that once joined them all together.

Again, in its time, this was one ginormous, voluminous ornate Abbey.

Various large rooms still have their vaulted ceilings intact, supported by heavy thick columns.

The main worship chamber is still intact and covered in dark but well-preserved iconography. A tall, brown, wooden screen runs down one section of the interior church. It is embellished with dozens of painted inserts the size of an average wall painting depicting biblical scenes and generations of saints.

It is somewhat dark inside as the only windows are at ceiling height, letting light in next to the high vaulted ceiling. It has an almost tomb-like or protected from outside attack feel to the chamber.

The Tree of Idleness

A friend had told me about this tree before I went as she had been to Kyrenia previously on a week’s holiday.

Lawrence Durrell wrote an autobiographical book called “Bitter Lemons of Cyprus”, describing the three years he spent on the island of Cyprus in the 1950’s. He used to sit under the 200 year old Robena tree in a restaurant in Bellapais that he referred to as the “Tree of idleness” and scrawl away daily.

The tree has now become famous and still exists in all its glory on the terrace of a restaurant now called Tree of Idleness.

Its not a spectacular tree, in fact its rather bushy and overgrown – I guess they are too scared to trim it, knowing its fame. Interesting how something that you would walk past and think nothing of has now got a place in the history of literature.

My thoughts on Kyrenia

I just had to delve deeper into the so called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”. I had crossed the “border” Green line in Nicosia to spend most of the day in this “Republic” but that was a simple affair within a city.

This time I wanted to see the coastline on the other side of the island and what is, in effect, the capital of this separate republic. I wanted to see what the differences here would be to the Greek Cypriot southern Republic of Cyprus.

The north is clearly less developed and affluent than the south. There is a feeling that the area has seen better days and there is much that needs more maintenance and repair from years gone by.

Yes, there is a definite “Turkish” fell and look to the area. I even saw lots a clearly unemployed youths in groups just hanging around areas, unlike the south where everyone seems to be too busy working to “hang out”. Buildings are less well kept, signs are all in Turkish not Greek and the vehicles are in a road-worthy condition that would not be allowed in the stricter south.

Less affluence, however, does mean that the north has much more of its landscape untouched by development and thus feels more natural in many areas.

I’ve now seen the northern “Republic”, it satisfied my curiosity (although I don’t think I can call it a “country” that I can tick off the list). It also reminded me that the island has a long way to go before, if ever, it is reunited as one harmonious country.

Feb 2018

Below are some related posts on nearby places to visit. Click on the pic to view.