For the last few months we had discussed places we wanted to see around the island, but we didn’t have an efficient plan for how we would see all the beauty this island had to offer. Recently, one of the other Fulbright students purchased a vehicle for use over the remaining six months of our stay in Cyprus. Last Sunday marked the first opportunity we had to venture out by car and we took full advantage of it with an entire day of site seeing in the Kyrenia region.
BELLAPAIX
Our first stop was Bellapaix. A quaint town outside of Kyrenia proper, Bellapaix is famous for its abbey that was built in the late 12th century and as the village where Lawrence Durrell, author of Bitter Lemons, found his house after he arrived in Cyprus in 1953.The abbey and neighboring cloisters are perched above Kyrenia, one of the historic port cities of Cyprus, creating a nice view of the sea over the sprawling city below. The most beautiful parts of the complex are definitely the ruined cloisters which surround a courtyard with a pointed-arched arcade and tracery windows.
Unfortunately, part of the building was torn down by the British who used the stone from the abbey to construct other buildings they needed during the colonial period.
The surrounding area is the setting of the famous book by Lawrence Durrell called Bitter Lemons. He writes the book about his travels to Cyprus where he plans to spend a few years. The journal chronicles his experience with the local population in Bellapaix and his understanding of the changes that were taking place in Cyprus at the time (namely, the EOKA movement which was the Greek Cypriot uprising seeking to rid the island of colonial rule and unionize with Greece). Near the abbey is a public space shaded by the “Tree of Idleness” which was made famous in Durrell’s book as explained by one of the locals:
“… I must warn you, if you intend to try and work, not to sit under the Tree of Idleness. You have heard of it? Its shadow incapacitates one for serious work. By tradition the inhabitants of Bellapaix are regarded as the laziest in the island. They are all landed men, coffee-drinkers and card-players. That is why they live to such ages. Nobody ever seems to die here. Ask Mr. Honey the grave-digger. Lack of clients almost driven him into a decline…” (76)
That tree could be either of the two trees shading café’s due to the fact that he never explains what kind of tree it is… No matter, time seems to move a little slower in this place. We walked up the hill to find Lawrence Durrell’s house, which he bought and fixed up while writing the book. The house has been substantially renovated since he was there but a plate above the front door marks where the author once lived. Another character, Frangos the town drunk, has a small plaque at the house next door as well. The chapters of the book I read the night before gained color as we walked through the intimate streets and up the steep slopes of the town.
At the top of the hill we found a Lonely Planet Guidebook “Authors Choice” for Bellapaix called the Gardens of Irini. This charming bed and breakfast/light restaurant is run by a British woman named Deirdre, who was wonderfully welcoming and enjoyed a glass of wine as she fixed us brandy sours. For quite some time we sat in her beautiful courtyard space, between the main house and the studio she rents, to talk about life. Deirdre told us stories about her childhood in Bellapaix and about her neighbor, Lawrence Durrell, who she calls “Larry”. She apparently is also a very accomplished flamenco dancer, which she recently retired from… just shy of her 70th birthday. This seemed to be the true “Tree of Idleness”, a place I could imagine escaping the world in.
BUFFAVENTO
On our way back to Nicosia we drove through the Pentadaktylos mountains that buffer Nicosia and the Mesaoria plain from the northern Mediterranean coast. After a hairpin turn toward the peaks off the highway we started up toward Buffavento Castle. Meaning “Buffeted by the Winds”, Buffavento Castle was constructed by the Lusignan (Frankish) ruling class shortly after they captured the island from Byzantine control in the late 12th century. Its strategic location at the top of the mountain overlooking the port city of Kyrenia and the capital, Nicosia was undoubtedly the reason for its treacherous location. To reach the castle, you must first navigate the two-way, single-lane winding cliff-side road for six kilometers at which point you are forced to park and hike up a winding walkway that takes around half an hour to zig-zag to the castle gate, a paved walkway that did not exist in medieval times. However, the journey is well worth the panoramic views out of the ruined castle.
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| View of the Pentadaktylos Mountains, named for the "five fingers" that are reaching up along the northern coast of the island. |
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