Another Sunday meant another road trip. We set off toward the beginning of the Karpas peninsula (northeast region of the island) in search of the final mountain castle to be found in the Pentadaktylos mountain range.
KANTARA CASTLE
Kantara Castle is a well preserved monument that was seized by the Richard the Lionheart in 1191 from the Byzantine rulers that oversaw the island previously. It overlooks two of the most historically important bays of the island, Famagusta in the east and Kyrenia in the north, and is rumored to have views that extend all the way to Turkey on clear days.
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| A view toward the Karpas Peninsula. |
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A view west along the Pentadaktylos. Kantara Castle once communicated with the Buffavento Castle, which we visited last week. |
FAMAGUSTA
After we enjoyed a few hours in the mountains we stopped for lunch in the Old Town of Famagusta. Similar to Nicosia, Famagusta is a walled city, but it lies along the port and hosts a much larger collection of important monuments. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough daylight left to fully explore the city after a long lunch near Lala Mustafa Mosque (formerly known as St. Nikolas cathedral), so we drove only a few blocks south to view the ghost town of Varosha.
VAROSHA
Varosha was the flourishing tourist district neighboring the historic port city of Famagusta prior to July 1974. As the Turkish military invaded the island from the north, the entire town was vacated by its residents and visitors who expected to return in the following days, weeks or months… After 36 years of partition, the entire city of Varosha remains under the occupation of the Turkish military as a forbidden zone; as a ghost town of beach, hotels, and homes.
The citizens who were displaced from this area remain passionate in their fight to regain their property (with numerous videos and blogs dedicated to it). This particular area has been seen as a potential bargaining tool to progress the reconciliation talks in Cyprus and remains an important factor in an overall property settlement plan, yet today it remains vacant.
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A crane frozen in time after construction work ceased in the summer of 1974 |
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