I've already mentioned his account in a previous post, but Archduke Salvator of Austria describes his first impressions of Nicosia (Levkosia) so beautifully that i had to post them again for the sake of my traveler series:
"When, after passing a pleasant range of hills, Levkosia first bursts upon the sight, with her slender palms and minarets, seated in a desert plain, a chain of picturesque mountains as the background, it is like a dream of the Arabian Nights realized – a bouquet of orange gardens and palm trees in a country without verdure, an oasis encircled with walls framed by human hands...
"When, after passing a pleasant range of hills, Levkosia first bursts upon the sight, with her slender palms and minarets, seated in a desert plain, a chain of picturesque mountains as the background, it is like a dream of the Arabian Nights realized – a bouquet of orange gardens and palm trees in a country without verdure, an oasis encircled with walls framed by human hands...
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| An oasis of palms at the Hala Sultan Tekke near Larnaca. |
... Great is the contrast between the town and its surroundings, and greater still between the objects within the city. There are Venetian fortifications by the side of Gothic edifices surmounted by the Crescent, on antique Classic soil. Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, dwell intermingled, bitter enemies at heart, and united solely by their love for the hand of their birth. (Salvator, 9)
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| View of Zahra Street in north Nicosia |
Salvator, L. 1983 (1881). Levkosia: The Capital of Cyprus. London: Trigraph.
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