Travelogue #2 – Girne and Famagusta, Cyprus

After breakfast, we checked out of our Nicosia hotel, walked across the Green Zone, and took a taxi to pick up our rental car. It was only a short drive to the coastal city of Girne, where we will stay for five nights while exploring the northern (Turkish) part of the island. The Greeks call the city, Kyrenia.

Girne is a sprawling place with a population of over 20,000, and it appears to be completely dominated by tourism. The center of the city is crowded, traffic-clogged, and given over entirely to small eateries and shops selling primarily to visitors. Our large modern hotel and its adjacent Las Vegas-style casino is a short walk from the small harbor.

We visited the nearby Girne castle, a massive structure built and rebuilt over the centuries to protect the harbor and the city itself. Historians believe that the Byzantines constructed the original castle in the 7th century to guard the city against a growing Arab maritime threat. The first historical reference to the castle occurs in 1191, when King Richard I of England captured it on his way to the Crusades. The castle has been subjected to several sieges including one by the Genovese in the 15th century that lasted nearly four years during which the unfortunate occupants survived on mice and rats. The Venetians, who took over Cyprus in the 16th century, strengthened and enlarged the castle into its present form.

The massive Girne Castle as seen from the harbor.

The drawbridge is gone, and this narrow gateway is still the only entry to the Girne

Castle.

We entered the castle through one small gate, barely wide enough for a small car to pass and spent a couple of hours clambering about the ancient battlements and huge interior spaces. The castle is essentially bare inside but does contains a museum that exhibits the remains of a Greek merchant ship from the 4th century BC. The 47-foot hull is made of pine sheathed in lead and is in remarkably good condition. This extraordinary vessel was recovered, together with its cargo including 400 amphorae and 9,000 perfectly-preserved almonds.

The well-preserved remains of ancient merchant sailing ship were in the Shipwreck

Museum in the Girne Castle.

We enjoyed a very nice lunch of shrimp and calamari at one of the many umbrellaed outdoor waterfront eateries that line the shore. Behind the row of restaurants was a row of end-tied boats that were moored side by side with no space in between. Most of them looked to have originally been small fishing craft. Now they angle for tourist sightseeing excursions.

The old harbor of Girne is filled with sightseeing boats.

The next day we drove southeast from Girne to explore Salamis, a huge archeological site near modern city of Famagusta. The Hellenization of Cyprus began around 1400 BC and eventually comprised ten Greek city-states. Salamis was the most important and wealthiest of the city-states on Cyprus.

Only part of the extensive site has been excavated.

A profusion of yellow wild flowers blanked much of the Salamis archeological site.

This theater was not discovered until 1959; archeologists have rebuilt it to half of its

original height of 50 rows of seats.

Nearby Famagusta was founded around 274 BC, after Salamis was seriously damage in an earthquake. The town developed slowly, and by the 13th century it had become a center for commerce for the East and West. In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered.

Famagusta has a number of important archeological sites, such as the remains of this

Roman bathhouse.

The modern city has been constructed in and around ancient ruins with minimal effort at preservation.

The gothic Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque was originally known as the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas. It was constructed from 1298 to 1312 when the French Lusignan dynasty ruled as kings of Cyprus. The cathedral was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman Empire captured Famagusta in 1571 and it remains a mosque to this day.

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque is the largest medieval building in Famagusta.

The interior of the Mosque is bare now.

Travelogue #3 – North Coast of Cyprus

This is a summary of some of the other highlights of our five days in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. We stayed in Girne the entire time and did major excursions around the area, diving our rental car almost 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) We described Girne in a previous travelogue, but our impression became more favorable as we came to be more familiar with the city. It helped that we were in an excellent hotel, enjoyed quite a few very nice meals in the city’s restaurants, and sampled several quite drinkable Turkish wines.

Despite having to use the wrong side of the road, this was an easy place to drive. The roads were generally good, and it helped that the rather low speed limits were strictly observed.

Karpas Peninsula

On the map of Cyprus, the long narrow Karpas Peninsula occupies about a third of the island’s total width; extending to the northeast, it resembles the tail of a sea ray. We spent a day driving from Girne to the tip, a distance of about 77 miles (125 kilometers)

The Kyrenia mountain range extends along the beginning of the peninsula; farther toward the tip, the terrain becomes rolling green hills. We visited several ancient churches; the 11th-century Byzantine church of Panayia Pergaminiotissa, the 6th-century Agia Trias Basilica, and the Apostolos Andreas Monastery. We also passed through the village of Sipahi where a small population of Greek Cypriots are supplied weekly with food, gas, and other necessities from Greek Nicosia.

The sea was a beautiful blue near the tip of the Karpas Peninsula.

The highlight of the day was climbing up to the dramatically-sited Kantara Castle. The Castle sits on a mid-peninsula peak in the Kyrenia mountain range, some 1,970 feet (600 meters) above the sea. It is thought to have been built around 965 when the island was restored to Byzantine rule after several hundred years of Arab domination. It served as a watchtower against pirate raids and was used to pass signals between the nearby strongholds of Buffavento and St. Hilarion.

The Kantara Castle can be seen from a great distance.

A long winding one-lane road up the mountain led to a flight of several hundred rough stone steps. The view was spectacular, encompassing both sides of the Karpas Peninsula.

The lower part of the stairway to the Kantara Castle was not too daunting.

St. Hilarion

The castle of St Hilarion is in the Kyrenia mountains not far from Girne. Starting in the 11th century, the Byzantines began fortification, which together with the castles of Buffavento and Kantara formed the defense of the island against Arab pirates. Although much of the castle was dismantled by the Venetians in the 15th century to reduce the upkeep cost of garrisons, we found the ruins to be worth the climb up and the view to be spectacular.

St. Hilarion Castle occupies a steep peak in the Kyrenia mountains.

There is no elevator to the top. The first rooms of the castle are reached by climbing a precarious flight of several hundred steep, rough stone steps. To reach to the towers and upper chambers, the steps are even more precarious. Although we were told that a tourist fell to his death recently, we slowly and carefully made our way up without incident.

Laura was thankful for the railing on the stairway up to St Hilarion Castle.

The panorama from the top of St. Hilarion spans all of Girne and an impressive swath of the adjacent north coast.

The massive Girne Castle is but a speck on the shoreline as seen from the heights of

St. Hilarion.

West Coast

We made a 100-mile (160-kilometer) excursion to the western tip of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an area known for citrus orchards. We drove by a large reservoir supplied with water from an under-sea pipeline from mainland Turkey. Near the small town of Güzelyurt, there were orchards of oranges, tangerines, and lemons followed by fields of strawberries and bananas; tomatoes were growing in extensive rows of plastic covered hothouses. Many ad hoc produce stands had been set up along the road. We were tempted by the attractive-looking fruit, especially the strawberries.

The purpose of our excursion was mainly to see the countryside, but significant archeological sites are ubiquitous here. We stopped to visit the site of the ancient Greek city of Soli which dates from the 6th century BC. More recent ruins at Soli include a Roman basilica with mosaic floors. (Much of the site and its protective roof structure are supported by the US Agency for International Development.) We also drove on to visit the mountaintop ruins of Vouni, the 5th-century BC site of the only Persian palace in Cyprus.

This mosaic swan was part of the floor of the 6th-century Roman basilica at Soli.