Experience the best of Nicosia

Nicosia, called Lefkosia in Greek, lies in the middle of Cyprus on the dry Mesaoria plain, ringed by round Venetian walls with eleven bastions built in the 1560s. The city has been divided since 1974, and a UN-patrolled buffer zone runs through the old town. Inside the walls, Laiki Geitonia is a restored quarter of lanes and craft shops, and the Cyprus Museum holds the island's largest archaeological collection.

St John's Cathedral is a small seventeenth-century church with vividly painted walls, and the Byzantine Museum holds one of the island's finest collections of icons. In the northern half, the Selimiye Mosque, once a Gothic cathedral, and the Ottoman Büyük Han stand beside the lanes of the old bazaar. The painted Byzantine churches of the Troodos Mountains lie to the south-west.

A meze table is the way to eat here: halloumi, grilled meats, olives, tahini and bean dips and stuffed vine leaves, with Cypriot coffee afterwards and sweet Commandaria wine from the Troodos foothills. Summers are very hot on the plain, and the milder months of spring and autumn suit walking the old town.