The Rough Guide to Cyprus, 3rd Edition - Softcover

Dubin, Marc

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1858284309 ISBN 13: 9781858284309

Publisher: Rough Guides, 1999

Synopsis

INTRODUCTION

Cyprus, the Mediterranean's third largest island after Sicily and Sardinia, defers only to Malta as the newest state in the region, having come into existence on August 16, 1960. For the first time, following centuries of domination by whatever empire or nation held sway in 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 rent the society asunder, followed in 1974 by a political and ethnic division of the island imposed by the mainland Turkish army.

However, calm for the most part now reigns on the island, and for British visitors there's a persistent sense of dj 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; Woolworth's, Next and M&S are present in the largest towns of the South; and of course driving is on the left. Before the recent founding of universities in both South and North, higher education was pursued abroad, preferably in the UK, and English - virtually the second, if unofficial, language in the South - is widely spoken. Despite the bitterness of the independence struggle against the UK, most is forgiven (if not exactly forgotten) a generation or so later.

Even the most ardent Cyprus enthusiast will concede that it can't compete in allure with more exotic, airline-poster destinations, yet the place grows on you with prolonged acquaintance (as evidenced by the huge civilian expat population, estimated at 20,000). There's certainly enough to hold your interest inland once you tire of the beaches, which tend to be small, scattered coves in the South, or longer, dunier expanses in the North. Horizons are defined by one of two mountain ranges: the convoluted massif of the Trdhos, with numerous spurs and valleys, and the wall-like escarpment of the Kyrenia hills, seemingly sculpted of papier-mch.

In terms of special-interest visits, archeology buffs, wine-drinkers, flower-sniffers, bird-watchers and mountain-bikers are particularly well catered for, though state-of- the-art nightlife and cultural diversions can be thin on the ground, in keeping with the predominantly forty- and fifty-something clientele, and the island's enduring provincialism. This has a natural consequence in the overwhelming presence of the package industry, supported by law in the South, by circumstance in the North, which has effectively put at least two of the bigger resorts and numbers of multistar hotels off-limits to independent travellers. But for an undemanding, reasonably priced family holiday most months of the year, Cyprus is still a good bet.

Divided Cyprus

Long-dormant rivalry and resentment between Cyprus' two principal ethnic groups was reawakened late in the 1950s by the Greek-Cypriot campaign for nosis or union with Greece. Following independence, disputes over the proper respective civic roles of the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities, and lingering advocacy of nosis, or taksim (partition of the island between Greece and Turkey) by extremists in each camp, provoked widespread, ongoing communal violence.

Abetted by interested outsiders, these incidents - and a CIA-backed coup against the elected government - culminated in the 1974 operation by the Turkish army which effectively partitioned the island, with both Greek and Turkish Cypriots on the "wrong" side of the ceasefire line compelled to leave their homes. Nicosia, the capital, approximately at the centre of Cyprus, was divided like Cold War Berlin, and remains so at present; much of Famagusta, formerly home to about seven percent of the island's current population, lies abandoned. If this all sounds eye-rollingly familiar in the wake of events in former Yugoslavia and the Russian Federation, there was during the 1960s and 1970s a relative novelty to the crises that repeatedly convulsed Cyprus.

In the aftermath of 1974, the two zones of Cyprus nurse grievances against each other that are difficult for many outsiders to fathom, and North and South remain mutually isolated, having developed over time into parallel societies, destined, perhaps, never to converge again. The island's division is comparable to that of pre-1990 Germany, though as Cyprus is a far more intimate place the scale of human tragedy has been more visible. Reunification, if and when it comes, is bound to be hedged with conditions, and fraught with pitfalls similar to the German experience: while South and North are both avowedly capitalist, the linguistic and religious gulf separating the two communities, compounded by nearly three decades of enforced segregation and a growing prosperity gap, may prove impossible to bridge.

About this title

About the Author:

Marc Dubin has been visiting Cyprus since 1992 and is the author of several other Rough Guides including Turkey, Greece and The Pyrenees.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Where to go

Because of the mutual hostility of South and North, you'll have to choose which side of Cyprus to visit on any given trip: except for severely restricted day-trips from the South into the North, you are not allowed to move from one side of the island to the other. If you go to the South after having been to the North, keep evidence of such a prior journey out of your passport (see "Visas and red tape" in Basics for a full explanation). Yet either portion of the island has plenty to keep you occupied for the typical one-, two- or three-week duration of package deals. When the South's busiest beaches east of Larnaca pall, there's the popular hill village of Pno Lfkara, unique sacred art at Byzantine Angelktisti church and nearby Lusignan "Chapelle Royale", or the atmospheric Muslim shrine of Hala Sultan to the west. Beyond functional Limassol, the Crusader tower of Kolossi guards vineyards as it always has, while still-being-excavated ancient Kourion sprawls nearby atop seaside cliffs.

Of the three main south-coast resorts, Pfos has most recently awoken to tourism, but with its spectacular Roman mosaics and early Christian relics has perhaps the most to offer. The hinterland of Pfos district belies its initial bleak appearance to reveal fertile valleys furrowing ridges sprinkled with brown-stone villages and, to either side of the Akmas Peninsula, the last unspoiled stretches of coast in the South. If you don't require lively nightlife, then Plis or Latch make good, comfortable overnight bases in this area, serving too as possible springboards into the foothills of the Trdhos mountains.

Inland from Pfos or Limassol, the mountains themselves beckon, covered in well-groomed forest, lovingly resuscitated from a nadir last century. Pltres, the original Cypriot "hill station", makes a logical base on the south side of the range; to the north, more authentic village character asserts itself at Pedhouls or Kakopetri. Scattered across several valleys, a dozen or so magnificently frescoed late-Byzantine chapels provide an additional focus to itineraries here if the scenery and walking opportunities aren't enough.

While not immediately appealing, southern Nicosia - the Greek-Cypriot portion of the divided capital - can boast an idiosyncratic old town in the throes of revitalization, and, in the Cyprus Museum, one of the finest archeological collections in the Middle East. North Nicosia, on the other side of the nearly impervious 1974 ceasefire line, is graced with most of the island's Ottoman monuments - and also introduces the Frenchified ecclesiastical architecture bequeathed by the Lusignan dynasty.

For the majority of tourists in the North, however, Kyrenia is very much the main event, its old harbour the most sheltered and charming on Cyprus. Modern residential and resort development straggles to either side of town, but this coast is still light-years behind the South in that respect. The hills looming above support three medieval castles - St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara - whose views and architecture rarely disappoint. Add villages in picturesque settings below the ridgeline, and it's little wonder that outsiders have been gravitating here longer than anywhere else on the island.

The beaches north of Famagusta are Kyrenia's only serious rival for tourist custom in the North, and hard to resist in tandem with Salamis, the largest ancient site on Cyprus. Famagusta itself is remarkable, another Lusignan church-fantasy wrapped in some of the most imposing Venetian walls in the world - though churches and ramparts aside there's little else to see or do, the town having lain devastated since the Ottoman conquest. North of the beach strip, the Kdrpaca (Krpas) Peninsula points finger-like towards Syria, its fine beaches and generous complement of early churches - most notably at yios Flon and Aya Tris - little frequented.

When to go

Because of a situation as much Middle Eastern as Mediterranean, Cyprus repays a visit in almost any month; the overall mildness of the climate allows citrus to grow at altitudes of 450 metres, grapevines to flourish up to 1000 metres and frost-tender cedars to sprout at 1500-metre elevations in the Trdhos. Such plant-zone limits would be unthinkable even on nearby Crete, despite an identical latitude of 34 degrees north.

If you're coming for the flora and birdlife - as more and more people do - then winter and spring, beginning early December and late February respectively, are for you. Rain falls in sporadic bursts throughout this period and into March, leaving the rare spectacle of a green, prairie-like Mesaora, the central plain which most tourists only know as a parched, stubbly dustbowl. You'll also cut costs significantly by showing up in the off-season.

As the months progress and the mercury climbs, you can either brave the multitudes at the seashore - considerable in the South - or follow the wild flowers inland and up the slopes of the Trdhos mountains, veritable havens of coolness and relative solitude. In the coastal South, midsummer is a bit too hot for comfort (though Pfos tends to be 1-2C cooler than Limassol or Larnaca), and of course incurs high-season prices (June-Sept). During July or August you're probably better off in the North, where the seaward, damper slope of the Kyrenia hills especially offers a refuge both from crowds and extreme temperatures.

Autumn is delightful, with the sea at its warmest, forays into the hills benefiting from stable weather, and the air (around Limassol or Pfos especially) heavy with the fumes of fermenting grapes. And if it's resort life you're after, the coastal strips don't completely wind down until after New Year.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1858284309
• ISBN 13: 9781858284309
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 132