The walls and the gates
Built in the 1560s and shaped like a star, with three gates. Kyrenia Gate still stands on its own in the middle of a square, which tells you how much the city has grown around it.
Lefkoşa
Nicosia
A walled Venetian city with a Gothic cathedral turned mosque at its centre and an Ottoman caravanserai around the corner. Nicosia is not a resort. It is where the island actually works.
11Venetian bastions around the old city
25 minTo the north coast beaches
1572The year Büyük Han was built
A capital inside a star
The Venetians pulled the medieval city in and wrapped it in a perfect circular wall with eleven points. It is all still there.
Selimiye Mosque
Begun as the Cathedral of St Sophia in 1209, in full French Gothic, and converted after 1570 with two minarets added to the towers. Standing inside a Gothic nave under a Mediterranean sky is the strangest and best thing in the city.
Büyük Han
An Ottoman caravanserai from 1572, built around a courtyard with a small mosque on pillars in the middle. Traders slept upstairs and stabled animals below. Today it is craft workshops and a courtyard café, and it is the nicest coffee in the old city.
A day in the old city
The Arasta
The covered bazaar streets behind Selimiye, selling fabric, spices, sandals and hardware to people who actually need them. Not a tourist market, which is exactly why it is worth walking.
Mevlevi Tekke
The old lodge of the whirling dervishes, now a museum, with the tombs of the sheikhs under a row of domes. Small, quiet and very beautiful.
Cafés and galleries
The lanes around the han fill up after work with students, gallery openings and long coffee. It is the closest thing on the island to a proper city evening.
What to order
A full kebab
Nicosia takes its kebab houses seriously. A full kebab arrives as meze first, then the grill, and defeats most people halfway through.
Pilavuna
A baked cheese pastry with mint and raisins, sold from bakeries all morning. The local answer to breakfast on the way to work.
Macun and Cyprus coffee
Spoon sweets made from walnut, bergamot or baby aubergine, served with a glass of water and a coffee. The old way to receive a guest, and still done properly here.
Living here
Nicosia is the one district without a coastline, and that shapes who buys here.
The all year city
Government, business, hospitals and the biggest universities are all here, so nothing closes in winter. If you plan to live in Cyprus rather than summer in it, this is the practical choice.
The beach is still close
It is twenty five minutes over the mountain to the north coast. Plenty of people who work in Nicosia swim after work in summer and are home for dinner.
Buying in Nicosia
Prices per square metre are lower than the coast and the rental market is year round rather than seasonal, driven by students, staff and professionals. It is the steady one.