Kyrenia — the town beneath the mountains

If you arrive in Kyrenia on the road from Nicosia, the town does not reveal itself gradually. The road crosses a saddle in the mountains and suddenly the whole coast lies below you — blue sea to the horizon, flat roofs among the palms and, right at the water, the dark mass of the castle. Kyrenia, Girne in Turkish, is the smallest of North Cyprus's three main towns, and most people who know the island consider it the loveliest.

A harbour shaped like a horseshoe

The heart of the town is the old harbour — a narrow stone horseshoe built by the Byzantines and later the Venetians to shelter boats from the north wind. Today it holds a handful of fishing boats, day-trip cruisers and the yachts of people who stopped here on the way to Turkey. Restaurants line the whole inner curve, occupying the ground floors of old customs warehouses; above their doors you can still see the stone corbels that once carried pulleys for unloading carob pods. Carob kept Kyrenia fed for centuries.

There are two times of day worth coming for. Around eight in the morning the quay is empty, fishermen are cleaning nets, and the water is often still enough to hold the whole castle in its reflection. And then the hour before sunset, when the light hits the stone walls from the side and the entire horseshoe turns yellow. In between — midday in July — it is hot and deserted.

The castle and the world's oldest merchant ship

The eastern side of the harbour is closed off by the castle. The Byzantines built the first fortress here in the 7th century against Arab raids, the Lusignans enlarged it in the Middle Ages, and the Venetians added low sloping bastions in the 16th century — by then it was being built against cannon, not arrows. You can walk the walls all the way round; the southwest corner gives the best view of the harbour anywhere in town.

But inside is the thing people travel across the world for. In an air-conditioned hall lies the wreck of a Greek merchant ship that sank about a kilometre offshore around 300 BC. Divers found it in 1965, raised it piece by piece and reassembled it. Roughly 60 per cent of the hull survives — it is the best-preserved trading vessel of antiquity. The cargo came up with it: more than four hundred wine amphorae, millstones that served as ballast, and almonds still in their clay jars.

The lanes above the harbour

Behind the row of restaurants the town climbs the slope and the streets narrow to the width of a single car. This is an Ottoman and British quarter: houses with inner courtyards, wooden shutters, here and there a minaret or a former church nave converted into a mosque. You will find spice shops, a barber, two or three small hotels in converted townhouses. It is not an open-air museum — people live there.

A little further from the sea, Kyrenia is an ordinary working town: banks, bakeries, a fruit and vegetable market, university students. Unlike the resorts on the east coast, life here does not stop in January. Winters are mild, around fifteen degrees by day, and most of the harbour businesses stay open all year.

Mountains right above the rooftops

Behind the town stands the Beşparmak range, Pentadaktylos in Greek — both names mean "five fingers", after a rocky crest that really does look like a hand when seen from the east. The limestone belt is only a few kilometres wide but steep: it rises from the coastal plain to over a thousand metres. That means twenty minutes from town puts you on a mountain road among pines, looking two ways at once — sea to the north, the Nicosia plain to the south.

Marked trails run along the ridge, and St Hilarion Castle stands up there, reachable by car almost to the gate. Bellapais Abbey is nearby too — it has a story of its own, and we covered it in our article on the island's history.

Beaches west and east

Nobody swims in the town itself; the shore here is rocky and built up. The beaches start just outside town on both sides. To the west, towards Alsancak and Karaoğlanoğlu, there is a string of smaller paid beaches with loungers and bars; the bottom is mostly sand with rock shelves, and the drive takes ten to twenty minutes. To the east, past the marina and on towards Çatalköy and Esentepe, the coast turns wilder and the beaches get longer and emptier. About half an hour east lies Alagadi, a protected stretch where sea turtles hatch in summer.

Practical notes

From Ercan airport it is about 40 minutes by car to Kyrenia, on the road round the Nicosia bypass. Nicosia itself is under half an hour away, Famagusta roughly an hour.

You cannot drive into the old harbour, and that is for the best. Park in the paid car park by the castle or along the coastal avenue above the old town and walk the rest — nowhere is more than five minutes away. On summer evenings and at weekends the car parks fill up, so come early. The finest time here is late April and October: the sea is still warm, the slopes are green, and you can get a table in the harbour without waiting.

If Kyrenia appeals to you as somewhere to live as well, we will gladly show you what is currently available in the town and the villages below the mountains — get in touch with us at CyprusGlobal.