Walking tour of Nicosia

On Sunday I spent most of the day wandering around the "Old City" of Nicosia. Most of Nicosia pretty much shuts down on Sunday, so once I got out of the tourist I just about had it all to myself. It had a bit of a ghost town feel to it, especially as there are a lot of unoccupied buildings which are falling apart. This certainly wasn't an uncommon scene:





However there were lots of lovely parts too, the Archbishop's Palace was probably the most attractive:





It was extremely hot walking around (one of those digital time/temperature displays said it was 37 degrees as I walked into the old city) so I had an icecream. I had my favourite, the Over icecream cone I discovered on Naxos. I actually struggle to finish it, which is saying something as I'm generally left wanting more. Anyway I ate my icecream in a park, which was quite large and completely deserted. I read in a guide book that a good proportion of the Nicosia population leaves en masse to the Troodos mountains, where the temperature is usually 10-15 degrees cooler. It's alright for those who have cars... but a day trip by bus is just about impossible even on a Saturday, and there seems to be about 2 buses running on the entire island on a Sunday. I've yet to see a single public bus in motion.

Around the entire city is a wall built by the Venetians. It hasn't done a particularly good job given that Nicosia has been successfully invaded on many occasions, but at least it's still standing:





I followed the wall as far you can go, until you hit the UN buffer zone. For those who don't know, Cyprus is split into two: the Turkish side to the north, and the Greek side to the South. Nicosia is also split in two, with a UN buffer zone down the middle of the city. You're not supposed to take photos but I was out of site of a guard post and there wasn't anyone in the hut so I figured I could get away with it. It's a lot easier than at a guard post in the center of the old city, where it's closely watched by a guard with a rather large gun.





I finished up my walking tour by going up to an observatory to get a good look at the entire city. Bizarrely the observatory is at the top of a Woolworths store. Woolworths here in Cyprus is more of a Myer affair, although there is a large supermarket in the basement. You get a good view of the entire city and surrounds. The most striking sights are both on the Turkish side.

There's a large mosque which I don't know too much about. I'm leaving that until I visit the northern side at some stage.





And then there's the enormous Turkish Cypriot flag on the side of a mountain. Turkey is the only country in the world that recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, so I guess they're trying to make up for its lack of exposure. It's certainly very visible - I saw it on my way from the airport to Nicosia, about 10km on the other side of the city to the flag.





Hopefully I'll get a closer look at both when I visit the North!