We decided to visit Cyprus on a whim, and shortly after arriving I was kind of wishing we'd reconsidered. Or at least hadn't decided to spend a whole week there.
The trip into Lefkosa (the Turkish name for their half of the divided capital city, which the Greeks call Nicosia) was through a bunch of barren grazing land, industrial land, then a seemingly neverending expanse of unattractive, soulless medium rise residential and commercial buildings. Fortunately things got steadily better from there, for almost the entirety of our stay in the country.
Cyprus has always had a mixed Turkish/Greek population. In 1974 a military coup by a group of Greek Cypriot military officers put a new government in charge that suspended the constitution and planned to join Cyprus to Greece. In reply Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, capturing large amounts of territory in the country's north, defeating fortified enclaves of Greek Cypriot paramilitaries in the north and forcing about 180,000 Greek Cypriot civilians south into majority Greek areas. Shortly after this the Greek junta fell apart, constitutional order was restored in Greece and the threat of Greek annexation of Cyprus receded. But instead of leaving, the Turkish army pushed forward and captured about 40% of the island's land, which soon after declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), an independent state with close ties to Turkey (which remains the only country to recognise it, meaning that if you want to enter Cyprus from the north you must do it via Turkey).
All of this means that the country has been pretty much split in two since 1974, with a UN buffer zone ranging from a few tens to a few hundred metres separating the two sides.
We spent most of our time in Cyprus in the northern, Turkish part. As I mentioned earlier, much of Lefkosa is a pretty uninspiring place. But inside the walls of the star-shaped Venetian fortress at the heart of the city, things are very different. There are still way more cell phone shops on the main street than seem necessary. But there are also lots of lovely narrow streets full of veggie markets, local bakeries and fun little cafes.
At the veggie markets we bought several pomegranates. We've been to many pomegranate growing countries during the season, but hands down Cyprus grows the biggest ones I've ever seen.
At the bakeries we bought delicious flat breads hot out of the oven, wrapped in newspaper. And on one occasion a couple of pide (Turkish baked flatbreads with toppings quite similar to Pizza) for which the family owners had to pop out to buy cheese and run upstairs to their apartment to get eggs and sausage for.
And at the cafe we had our first Menemen, a popular Turkish breakfast food made of eggs, tomatoes and green peppers all stirred up and baked in a pan (very similar to the Shakshuka we'd left behind a month or so previous in Israel).
But of course there can only be one food highlight of a visit to Cyprus: the cheese. Whether you call it by its Turkish name (Hellim) or its Greek one (Halloumi), the salty, squeaky cheese is one of my and Sarah's favourites (and if you know of Sarah's feelings on cheese, that's saying something). We ate fried or grilled helim for dinner every night in Cyprus, except for the day when our pide lunch (which also featured hellim) left us too full for dinner. We had four different Hellim and a Halloumi. It's traditionally made with a mix of sheep and cow cheese, and the more sheep character was noticeable in most of them. And they were almost all at least a little saltier than NZ or Canadian manufactured "Halloumi". And they were all fabulous.
There were lots of pretty old Venetian, crusader, Ottoman and British colonial institutional and religious buildings in Lefkosa. The most memorable of these was probably the Selimiye Mosque/Aya Sofia cathedral. All over Cyprus, most notably in Lefkosa and Famagusta, old churches were converted to mosques after the Ottoman conquest. This is relatively common all over Turkey. On the mainland, most of the converted churches were Byzantine style, and since Byzantine architecture strongly influenced Ottoman architecture, the conversion is often not all that striking. But on Cyprus, many of the churches are gothic style Venitian ones, which makes for a very interesting juxtaposition. It was a little reminiscent of the Arabo-Norman architecture in Sicily, but was mostly just its own thing entirely. Sarah observed that it was interesting to see "stripped down" gothic cathedrals, free of almost all ornamentation, which left the architecture bare and plain to see. There were quite a few large tour groups at the mosque in Lefkosa, which was pretty relaxed about letting visitors in. There were signs requesting modest dress from everyone, and that women wear headscarves, but no one complained about the many people who disobeyed the rules. There was even one German guy who wandered into the courtyard in front of the mosque with his group while sipping on a beer! I can hardly fathom the degree of cluelessness and/or rudeness that would be required for this to seem like a good idea!
Meanwhile, on the Greek side of the Green Line, the churches were, of course, still in use as churches. We spent a full day over in the Republic of Cyprus, crossing the border in the morning and returning after dark.
Until fairly recently this would have been impossible. For many years after the war, it was simply impossible to move between the two halves. Then even once that changed, for many years the government of the Republic of Cyprus viewed entry into the ports or airport of northern Cyprus to an illegal entry into the republic (similarly to how Serbia treats entries to Kosovo).
As it stands now, however, you just show your passport to a TRNC border guard then walk through the UN buffer zone (we walked through the Ledra Palace entry, which has a few UN institutions, a "peace meeting centre" and, oddly, a landscaping company, located inside the buffer area). Show your passport to a (very friendly) Republic of Cyprus border guard (who doesn't even stamp it) and you're in.
The old city of Greek Nicosia looks a little more modern than Turkish Lefkosa, with several nice pedestrian streets and lots of chain stores. While there we checked out the national museum of art and icons. The art was interesting because it was full of (not to be unkind, it's a small country with limited resources, so I fully understand) second and third rate renaissance paintings from western Europe. It reminded you that not everyone in the era was a Raphael or Vermeer. And seeing less successful, less technically skilled works from the period kind of gave you a better feeling for what the painters were trying to achieve than does seeing ones that are already great works of art and present-day icons.
Meanwhile, the actual icons were fabulous. I've seen enough of them now that I can even recognize a (limited) selection of the saints popular in orthodox countries. It was also interesting to read the stories of the works that had been looted from northern Cyprus. The looters, collectors and people making money off this are miserable buggers. But I do have some doubts about the idea, forcefully expressed all over the museum, that the Northern government is actively working to destroy and "cleanse" the north of Greek/Christian culture.
Just as I have doubts about the placards and information panels in the north that go on at length about the reprehensible behaviour of the Greek Terrorists.
But these sorts of things weren't very common, and most of the individuals we spoke to didn't seem to be harbouring deep bitterness about the other side. Between this and the ease in crossing the border, I get the feeling that it really is just a matter of time before the island is reunified.
We popped outside the walls a bit, and were similarly unimpressed with the new parts of Greek Nicosia as we had been with Turkish Lefkosa. But back inside we hit a high point with our visit to Pivo brewery. The brothers that own the place and brew the beer were super friendly. We had a nice long talk over the bar, and their beer, while not being super flashy or adventurous were varied (everything from American Red ale to Bohemian Pilsner to Weizenbock) and, most importantly were all really good!
After Lefkosa/Nicosia we headed out east to the old walled city of Famagusta. The city is much too large to fit within the walls, but the area inside them is, with the exception of one street and a the square around the converted mosque-church, pretty much all old residential. We actually had to try pretty hard to even find a place to stay. But it's just this that is one of the really cool things about Famagusta. It seemed that with every corner you turned, with every alley you emerged from there was another crumbling piece of the city's history. Mosques, hammams, churches, prisons and, of course the city walls. The most famous of these is the Othello Tower. The tower long predated Shakespeare, but was named so post-facto because Famagusta seems almost certain to have been the setting for some of the play.
I've already talked a bit about Cypriot cuisine, but there's one more important thing I've failed to mention so far. In addition to the obvious Greek and Turkish influences, Cyprus, being so far south and east in the Mediterranean has also picked up plenty of Levantine influences too. Which meant that we had hummus for lunch in Famagusta! It wasn't as smooth as we'd had in Israel and Palestine (it had a texture more like what we'd make at home), but it tasted a lot like typical Palestinian hummus, with lots of strong olive oil, tahini and lemon.
Our final destination in Cyprus was the city of Girne/Kyrenia on the north coast. It was actually a bit of a shock. Lefkosa and Famagusta had both had plenty of tour group, but Girne was on a whole other level. It's a popular sun holiday destination for Turks, Brits and eastern Europeans, and it shows. The town centres on a pretty marina that is now all yachts and tour boats instead of fishing vessels, and the centre is pretty much all fish restaurants, kebab shops and little dairies that sell more alcohol than everything else put together (it's much cheaper in Cyprus than Turkey).
But it does have two fabulous castles. The next day Sarah and I went to one each. She headed to Kyrenia castle on the sea near the town centre, while I made the steep 730m climb up to St. Hilarion castle on a rocky mountaintop overlooking the town from waaaay up above.
My castle was spectacular. It was one of those ones that has been built, modified, rebuilt and renovated over the years. The walls and towers that remain are pretty cool, but the real highlight is the setting. The mountains along Cyprus' north coast are rugged, and St. Hilarion sits atop some of the ruggedest.
Even once in the castle you end up climbing about two or three hundred stairs to get to the top (not a big deal after the climb up the hill to get there, but it seemed to be a bit of a struggle for many who'd come up on tour buses).
I had lunch (hellim sandwiches, what else!?) up at the very high point enjoying the view and the breeze before heading back down. It was a really fun walk, especially on the downhill side of the loop, and left me in good condition to get to bed nice and early.
This was important because, despite my efforts to find us a flight back to Turkey that didn't leave too ridiculously early, the limited schedule of airport buses meant that we were taking the 03:50 one the next morning. This gave us heaps of time to enjoy our airport beer and get through immigration for our trip to Istanbul.
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