Four days in Nicosia: Europe's last divided capital, crossed on foot down a shopping street

Three nights in the walled old town, on foot throughout, with a full day across the Green Line in the northern half of it.

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Length
4 days, 3 nights
Where you stay
Nicosia
Places
9 across 4 days
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Nicosia is the only capital in Europe still cut in half. A buffer zone runs straight through the middle of the old town, patrolled by the United Nations since 1974, and on either side of it are two versions of the same city: euros and Greek on one side, lira and Turkish on the other, and the same sandstone Ottoman and Venetian buildings on both.

The strange part is how ordinary the crossing is. Ledra Street is a pedestrian shopping street with clothes shops down both sides, and halfway along it there is a passport booth, then another, and then you are in the north and the shop signs change. It opened to pedestrians in 2008 and now thousands of people use it every day without breaking stride.

Almost everything worth seeing sits inside the circular Venetian wall, which was thrown up in the 1560s with eleven arrowhead bastions and did not save the city. Three nights covers both halves without hurrying, and the whole of it is walkable.

Highlights

  • The Cyprus Museum, which holds the best of the island's archaeology from the Neolithic to Rome
  • Walking through the passport booths on Ledra Street into the northern half of the same old town
  • The Selimiye Mosque, a French Gothic cathedral wearing two Ottoman minarets
  • Büyük Han, an Ottoman caravanserai of 1572 built around a courtyard you can sit in
  • The Byzantine Museum and its collection of Orthodox icons, one of the finest anywhere

Where to stay

Nicosia, three nights

Stay inside the Venetian walls on the southern side, ideally near Faneromeni or the Ömeriye quarter. From there the museums, the crossing and the restaurants are all within a ten minute walk, and you can go back to the room in the middle of the afternoon, which in summer you will want to.

There are hotels in the north of the old town too, and staying there is perfectly easy, but the southern side has more of the eating and the evening life and puts you closer to the Cyprus Museum.

Day by day

Day 1 in Nicosia

Eleftheria Square, Ledra Street and the old town

Start where the modern city meets the old one. Eleftheria Square is built over the Venetian moat as a long white concrete deck by Zaha Hadid's practice, and it took so many years to finish that Nicosians had time to make a running joke of it. Whatever you think of it, it is the front door.

Walk up Ledra Street from there into the old town. It is the main shopping street and it is also the street with the border in it, though you will not reach the booths for another five minutes and there is no need to cross today.

Turn off into Faneromeni Square, which was the heart of the city until 1974 and is now a quiet space with the largest church inside the walls on one side and a school on another. The bars around it fill up after dark with students, which is the best time to be there.

  1. 16:00

    Eleftheria Square

    Architecture

    The white concrete deck laid across the Venetian moat, and the point where the modern city hands you over to the old one.

  2. 17:00

    Faneromeni Square

    Architecture

    The square that was the centre of Nicosia until the city was divided, with the big church on one side and student bars around it.

  3. 19:30

    Piatsa Gourounaki

    Eat

    Large plates of Cypriot grilled meat a minute from Faneromeni, and the easiest first dinner in the old town.

With more time: The Archangel Michael Trypiotis church a street away dates from 1695 and has a carved stone window screen on the south wall that is worth the two minutes it takes to look at.

Day 2 in Nicosia

The Cyprus Museum, the Leventis and the icons

The Cyprus Museum is just outside the walls by the Paphos Gate and it is the reason to give Nicosia a proper visit rather than a day. It runs from the ninth millennium BC to the end of antiquity: the terracotta army of some two thousand small votive figures from Agia Irini, the Roman bronze of Septimius Severus, gold from the royal tombs at Salamis. It is old fashioned, poorly lit in places, and completely absorbing.

After lunch, the Leventis Municipal Museum tells the city's own story instead of the island's, from the Bronze Age through the Lusignans, the Venetians, the Ottomans and the British, in a restored townhouse. It won European Museum of the Year, deservedly, and takes about an hour.

Finish at the Byzantine Museum by the Archbishop's Palace, which holds one of the strongest collections of Orthodox icons anywhere, including panels recovered after being looted from churches in the north.

  1. 09:30

    Cyprus Museum (Κυπριακό Μουσείο)

    Historic

    The island's archaeology in one building, from the Neolithic to the Romans, and unhurried by crowds at any time of year.

  2. 12:30

    Cookshop

    Eat

    A reliable kitchen near the Archbishopric with a menu that ranges across the eastern Mediterranean. Book if you want a table at eight.

  3. 14:15

    Leventis Municipal Museum

    Culture

    The city's own museum in a converted townhouse, telling Nicosia from 2300 BC to the present in about an hour.

  4. 15:30

    Byzantine Museum

    Visit

    Orthodox icons by the hundred beside the Archbishop's Palace, among them panels recovered after being taken from churches in the north.

With more time: The House of the Dragoman Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios, a few streets south, is an eighteenth century merchant's mansion turned ethnographic museum, and the best surviving interior of its kind in the city.

Day 3 in Nicosia

Across the line: Büyük Han and the Selimiye Mosque

Passport in a pocket, walk up Ledra Street, show it at one booth and then the other, and you are in the north. The transition is abrupt in the small things and not at all in the big ones: the same low sandstone houses, different flags, and prices in lira.

Büyük Han is five minutes in. It is a caravanserai built in 1572, shortly after the Ottoman conquest, on the model of the one at Bursa: two galleried storeys around a courtyard with a small octagonal mosque standing in the middle of it. Merchants stabled animals below and slept above. It is now craft workshops and a cafe, and sitting in the courtyard with a coffee is one of the good hours in Cyprus.

Round the corner is the Selimiye Mosque, which began in 1209 as the cathedral of Saint Sophia and is unmistakably a French Gothic church: pointed arches, a rose window, flying buttresses, and two minarets added after 1570. The interior was whitewashed and the floor laid with carpets aligned to Mecca, at an angle to the building, and the effect is one of the strangest and best things on the island. Shoes off, shoulders covered, and avoid prayer times.

  1. 10:00

    Büyük Han

    Other

    An Ottoman caravanserai of 1572, two galleried storeys of rooms, now craft workshops and one of the best courtyards in Cyprus.

  2. 11:45

    Selimiye Mosque

    Religious

    A Gothic cathedral begun in 1209, given minarets after 1570, with carpets laid at an angle across a French nave.

  3. 13:15

    Ömer Pide Lahmacun

    Eat

    Pide and lahmacun out of a wood oven, a few streets from the mosque, and cheap even by northern prices.

  4. 14:30

    Dervish Pasha Ethnography Museum

    Culture

    An Ottoman merchant's mansion of about 1801, restored as a museum of how a wealthy household in the walled city lived.

With more time: The Mevlevi Lodge near the Kyrenia Gate was the tekke of the whirling dervishes and is now a museum with the tombs of the sheikhs in a row under domes at the back. Fifteen minutes, and unlike anything else in the city.

Day 4 in Nicosia

The observatory over the buffer zone

One last thing before the airport, and it is the one that pulls the four days together. The observation deck on top of the Shakolas building, the tower block that sticks out of the medieval skyline on Ledra Street, looks down on the whole old town at once.

From up there the buffer zone is not an idea but a visible strip: roofs with trees growing through them, a street of shuttered shops, sandbags, and then the northern half carrying on as normal on the other side. Nothing else you do in Nicosia explains the city as quickly.

Larnaca airport is forty minutes away, so a mid morning start is enough for an afternoon flight.

  1. 09:30

    Ledra Observatory Museum

    Other

    An observation floor at the top of the tower block on Ledra Street, looking straight down into the buffer zone and across both halves of the city.

With more time: With a later flight, walk out to the Famagusta Gate at the eastern end of the walls. It is the best preserved of the three Venetian gates and is now a small arts centre with a long vaulted passage through the rampart.

Before you go

Crossing the line

Take your passport every day, because you will want to cross more than once and you cannot do it without one. The Ledra Street crossing is on foot, takes a couple of minutes in each direction, and is open around the clock. There is no charge and no visa.

The two sides use different currencies, euro in the south and Turkish lira in the north, though the north takes euros in tourist places at a rate that will not favour you. If you are driving, a hire car from the south is usually not insured across the line; cover can be bought at the vehicle crossings, and it is far simpler to walk.

Getting there and around

Nicosia has no working airport of its own, since the old one has sat inside the buffer zone since 1974. Larnaca is about forty minutes away by road and is the airport almost everybody uses; Paphos is closer to two hours. Buses run from both, and a taxi from Larnaca is not expensive shared between two.

Inside the walls you walk. The old town is small, the streets are narrow with almost no pavement, and traffic is the only real hazard. The modern city sprawls for kilometres beyond the walls and there is very little reason to go out into it.

Heat, and when to go

Nicosia sits inland on a plain with no sea breeze at all, which makes it the hottest place on the island by a distance. July and August regularly pass forty degrees and the old town becomes unusable between noon and five.

March to May and October to November are the months to come: warm, clear, and comfortable for a full day of walking. Winter is mild and wet and perfectly pleasant, and museums keep shorter hours.

Most people come to Cyprus for the coast and give the capital an afternoon, which is why Nicosia stays as good as it is. The old town is a working one, full of students and civil servants and hardware shops, and it has never had to perform for anybody.

Give it three nights, cross the line twice, and go up the tower on the last morning to see what you have been walking through.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is it safe and legal to cross into the north?
Yes. The crossings are official, staffed on both sides, and used by thousands of people daily. You need a passport, there is no fee, and you can go back and forth as often as you like. Do not photograph military posts or wander into the buffer zone anywhere other than a designated crossing.
How long do I need in Nicosia?
Two full days covers both halves of the old town at a walk. Four days lets you take the Cyprus Museum slowly, cross more than once, and sit out the hottest part of the afternoon, which in summer is not a luxury. Anything longer is better spent on the coast or in the Troodos mountains.
Can I use the same money on both sides?
The south uses the euro and the north the Turkish lira. Shops and restaurants in the northern old town will usually take euros, at a rate set in their favour, so draw a small amount of lira if you plan to eat and shop there. Cards are widely accepted on the southern side.
Can I rearrange the days?
Yes, with one caveat: mosques on the northern side close to visitors around prayer times and on Friday middays, so the crossing day is easiest on a weekday. Load the plan into a trip and move the days to suit.