Experience the best of Famagusta

Famagusta, known in Turkish as Gazimağusa, lies on the east coast of Cyprus, with the island's deepest harbour. Ptolemy II founded a settlement here in the third century BC, and it grew into a rich port under the Lusignan kings, who ruled from 1192, and then under Genoa and Venice. Ramparts built mostly by the Venetians in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries enclose the old city.

Inside the walls, the Gothic cathedral of St Nicholas, now the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, rises among ruined churches, and Othello Castle, the citadel by the harbour, is tied to Shakespeare's play. The Ottomans took the city in 1571 after a long siege. Salamis, an ancient city with a Roman gymnasium and theatre, lies a few kilometres to the north.

The tables of the east coast run to fish, grilled halloumi and meze, with fruit and vegetables from the plain behind. The rain falls mostly from autumn through winter, and the summers are long, hot and dry.