City kingdoms
Long before Rome, Cyprus was divided into ten independent city kingdoms. Salamis on the east coast and Soli in the west were two of the greatest. Salamis still has its gymnasium, its baths and a theatre that seated fifteen thousand.
Ten thousand years, and most of it still standing.
Cyprus sits where three continents meet, so everybody came through. The unusual part is how much they each left behind, and how much of it you can walk into on an ordinary afternoon.
The ancient island
Copper and the name
The island was the ancient world's copper mine, and the metal took its name from the island rather than the other way round. Cuprum, copper, Cyprus.
The apostle
Barnabas was born here and travelled with Paul. Cyprus was the first place governed by a Christian, and the church here has been self governing since 488. His tomb is a few minutes outside Famagusta.
Four empires, one street
You can stand in one place in the old city of Famagusta and see Gothic, Venetian and Ottoman architecture without turning your head.
The Gothic century
The Lusignans, a French dynasty, ruled for three hundred years and built cathedrals here in the same style going up in Reims and Paris at the time. Two of them are now mosques and still in daily use.
Abbeys and castles
Bellapais Abbey above Kyrenia, and three crusader castles strung along the mountain ridge at St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara. They were built to watch the coast, which is why the views are what they are.
Venice, then the Ottomans
Venice wrapped Nicosia in a star shaped wall in the 1560s. The Ottomans took the island soon after and stayed three centuries, leaving the hans, the fountains, the coffee and a good deal of the cooking.
The culture you will actually meet
The coffee house
Every village has one, and it is the real institution of the island. Backgammon, a small cup of coffee that takes an hour, and the news of the neighbourhood. Foreigners get invited in quickly.
Meze, and time
A meze is not a starter, it is the evening. Twenty or more plates arriving in waves over three hours. Refusing to be hurried is the point of it.
Two languages, easily
Turkish is the everyday language and English is spoken almost everywhere, a legacy of the British period that survives in the schools, the road signs and the plug sockets.
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