Adventures in Europe: Lefkosia (Nicosia), Cyprus

From Lefkara, today we made a day trip to the Cyprus capital. As far as I ever knew, it is called Nicosia, but on most signs it says Lefkosia, and apparently that is its name in Greek. Originally we had not planned to visit Lefkosia, but I was awake too early this morning and started reading things on the internet as one does and one thing led to another and eventually I suggested to my wife that we visit Lefkosia tomorrow. She agreed, but had some good reasons to make the visit today, and, so, we did. The nice thing about Cyprus is it is so small that you can pretty much make anywhere on the island a day trip with very little planning when you are more-or-less staying in the middle as we are!

I had been nervous about driving on the left, but the drive from Larnaca to Lefkara yesterday went just fine and Lefkosia is not a large city (maybe a few hundred thousand if you count generously) so I did not feel too intimidated. We left Lefkara after breakfast and reached the city around 10:00, after about 45 minutes of mostly freeway driving. I did take one wrong turn, but we found parking outside of the old city easily and walked in from there.

Lefkosia is divided into two between the Republic of Cyprus and the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is partly what makes it interesting to visit. We spent about an hour on the south, Greek, side of the city, doing some shopping on the main pedestrian street called Ledra . . .

. . . and having coffee at a lovely cafe in a picturesque square by a Greek orthodox church.

There is a place called the Shacolas Tower Museum and Observatory on the top floor of an office tower nearby, which you can enter for a couple of euro. It lets you look out over the city and beyond, including a good view of the Turkish half of Lefkosia. There are plaques telling you about the different buildings and neighbourhoods, and a short video about the history of Lefkosia. 

After the museum visit we went back to Ledra street to walk to the end where there is the pedestrian border crossing into North Cyprus. 

This sign is on the southern side of the border. It is a nice sign, of course, but why I photographed it is that I had seen pictures online of the same sign with bullet holes in the wall around it. The bullet holes have now apparently been plastered over!

The United Nations maintains a buffer zone (the Green Zone) between the two sides, but it is very narrow here, and we were through the passport checks and across in about five minutes. 

There are, of course, a lot of similarities between the north and the south, but I was surprised how different it felt and, indeed, how much the north reminded me of Turkey. 

Compared to the south side of the city, the north felt more vibrant and colourful, and certainly you notice the differences in language (including alphabet!) and currency (the north uses the Turkish lira, the south the euro); the north still drives on the left though!

We were particularly interested in visiting Buyuk Han (or, "big inn").

Buyuk Han is an old caravansary now used as a shopping mall with the old rooms converted into shops with souvenirs, antiques, books, and artisans. There are cafes and restaurants in the courtyard.

We browsed the shops and ate lunch here, relaxing and enjoying the atmosphere.

From Buyuk Han we walked a couple of blocks to Selimiye Camii, a big old church now converted into a mosque. Unfortunately, it is undergoing some serious restoration work and there was not much to see or photograph. We ended our time in Lefkosia with glasses of Turkish çay, and then headed back across the border and through the old city to the car.