Northern Cyprus - Famagusta

We start our tour in the morning and head towards Larnaca, but we will not enter the city, we will see from afar. We go to the border, cross the border point, present our passports, and enter the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

Then we cross the island from south to north and climb to one of the peaks of the mountain range, which is called Pentodactylos, which means “five fingers”. On this summit is the fortress of Kantara, founded by the Venetians in the 8-10 centuries AD to protect the northeast of the island from Arab raids. The special beauty of this fortress is given by the fact that it is located at the base of the Karpasia Peninsula and from here the sea on both sides of the island, the plain and the most beautiful mountains are very clearly visible. Walking through the entire fortress, we descend from the mountains and head to Famagusta, one of the most beautiful and wealthy cities of the Middle Ages.

In Famagusta, which the Turks call "Gazimaguza", we will visit the temple of St. Nicholas, Othello Castle, climb the fortress walls that protected the city. The Church of St. Nicholas is a Notre-Dame-de-Paris or Rhine Cathedral building, a stunningly beautiful building of classical Gothic architecture, built in the late 13th and early 14th centuries for the coronation of the French kings of Cyprus from the Louisignan dynasty. Currently, this building has been turned into the Mustafa Pasha Mosque, which we can visit and get acquainted with Muslim traditions.

After lunch, we go to the abandoned city of Varosha, a very specific sight. Until 1974, Varosha, a tourist suburb of Famagusta, was the main and richest resort in the Mediterranean. Here rested all the rich Europe, the most expensive hotels, restaurants and shops – all this is abandoned and called “ghost town”. We can see all this, being on the best beach of Cyprus, here you can swim and appreciate the prospects of development, in case the two parts of the island unite.