GETTING off the beaten track and away from the crowds sounds like most people’s recipe for a perfect holiday.
It’s a great idea, but unfortunately, these days it is getting more and more difficult, unless of course you want to spend the first day of your holiday sitting in an aircraft. For most people, the requirement is simple; they want to find a holiday destination that will give them everything they need — from wonderful restaurants to great beaches — but also allow them to get ‘far from the madding crowd’ whenever they want. The answer is not so simple, however, because so many places that were, once upon a time, interesting discoveries unspoiled by the mass market, are now fully geared up for tourism and charging appropriately. What is needed is a destination, ideally in the Mediterranean, that has not suffered the blight of over-expansion, and which does allow its visitors to get off the beaten track whenever they like.
A place, perhaps, like Northern Cyprus. The reason it has escaped the sort of development that has plagued much of the rest of the area is course political and long-standing. The fact, however, is that, from a holidaymaker’s point of view, it is just sitting there at the eastern end of the Med, waiting to be discovered.
Not that a lot of Brits haven’t done so. We are the place’s top visitors, with over 100,000 traveling there in 2004. But, in reality, that is still a tiny number compared to the most of the rest of the Med.
Which, of course, is not entirely good news for North Cyprus tourism, which would like to welcome many more of us to their shores, and hope to be doing so in the next few years. But, it is certainly very good news indeed for anyone who wants everything a Mediterranean island should offer — plus the almost unique option of being to get away from even the small crowds at will.
And this is no empty promise. Hire a car from the delightful harbour town of Kyrenia and head east up towards the Karpaz Peninsula and, even at peak periods, you will be a part of the country where you can have a beach to yourself. It is quite normal to be able to drive for an hour or so without seeing another tourist, and the reception you get in any small bar or restaurant will be one of genuine hospitality for that relative rarity, the foreign visitor.
To put it another way, on local maps they even have donkeys marked, which means ‘Beware of wandering donkeys on the road.’Clearly the donkeys know a good thing when they see it, as do the turtles which breed from beaches in this part of North Cyprus.
In fact North Cyprus is one of the few places left in the Med where endangered turtles lay eggs on the beach. This, really, says it all. Turtles were once much more common in the Med, and now North Cyprus is one of the very few places where you can swim with them in the unpolluted water, and watch them go into the sea at dusk. It is sight unlikely to be forgotten, and it is what getting off the beaten track is really all about.
The turtles might have been around for 200 million years, but they may not be there for much longer if the conservation efforts being carried out in North Cyprus are not successful. There are only around 300 or so green turtles left in the Mediterranean and about 1000 loggerheads, most of which breed in North Cyprus and Turkey.
In a nutshell, and without naming any names, North Cyprus is like quite a few so-called ‘unspoiled’ places used to be and still try and pretend they are today. Except that places like the beautiful harbour at Kyrenia are not packed with tourist boats, or floating casinos for that matter; your quiet evening meal will not be blasted off the table when the next door disco cranks up, and you won’t hear so much English spoken that you might as well be, well, in England.
In North Cyprus you will get that table you want by the water’s edge, without having to fight off a hundred other nationalities. It is a place where you can linger quietly over your Turkish coffee and local drink wondering whether to engage in a little hassle-free shopping or simply collapse on a completely and utterly deserted beach. These are the sorts of reasons why we Brits go back every year, as well as that wonderful ‘extra’ — tremendous value. Because North Cyprus is outside the euro zone, prices are as old-fashioned as the atmosphere.
And then there is the fact that, when you do head off-the-beaten track, there really is a lot to see. Before you even set foot in the place it is nice to know that a few people have been there before you, for about 9,000 years, to be exact, starting with Hellenistic civilisation, and then going on to the Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Frankish, Venetian, and Ottoman. So — how best to discover this undiscovered world? Well, let’s go back to the that peaceful harbour, known to most of us as Kyrenia, but to the locals as Girne.
It is one of the two main holiday centres and richly deserves its reputation for being, well, drop-dead gorgeous. It is, in a nutshell, everything you want from a small harbour in the Med. A backdrop of mountains rolls down to the sea, via a 1,000 year old castle built by the Venetians to keep people out of the town they were putting together at the same time. Suffice it to say that they would recognise most of it today, including the local banquets served nightly in the harbour-side restaurants.
For those who like to be at the centre of things, and a few minutes walk from quaint old shops, boats and local bars, there are plenty of smaller hotels overlooking the harbour. Sit on your balcony, sip a local drink, watch the fresh fish being landed, smell the bougainvillea tumbling out of mediaeval walls and thank heaven you decided against the all inclusive holiday resort.
The coastline round Kyrenia/Girne is rocky and rugged, although there are plenty of coves in which to discover a small beach of your own. But head inland by hire car, scooter or local bus, and there is an open air museum to explore in terms of abbeys and castles waiting to be seen.
By far the most famous is Bellapais, and rightly so. A few minutes walk from that idle tree, the graceful abbey church, great refectory, vaulted cloisters and chapter house are no less impressive than its hillside location with soaring cypress trees.
If you are feeling distinctly un-idle, then head further into the Besparmak mountains to the castle of St Hilarion which at 2,400 feet above sea level is said to have been the model for Walt Disney’s castle in Snow White.
Having scaled such heights you may want to come right back down to sea level, right bact to sea level in fact, in which case one might suggest some of the best beaches at Famagusta, or Gazimagusa in local parlance.
Stretching north from Famagusta/Gazimagusa there are several miles of fine white sand and, while no one is going to pretend you will be completely by yourself in the high season, you certainly won’t get sand kicked in your face by the noisy mob next door, and in the off season, they really are deserted.
Which isn’t to say that the town itself hasn’t got a great deal to offer. Prove this for yourself by walking round the ramparts of the old town and noting the fine sea gate and famous harbour citadel of Othello’s Tower, which you will of course readily connect to Shakespeare’s play.
Having looked down, then you can then descend and look up, at the truly amazing Lala Mustafa Pasa Mosque, which was once St Nicholas’ Cathedral, around which the shops and market stalls spread out, selling everything from local crafts to herbs and spices.
Once you have appreciated the two most popular towns in North Cyprus it is time to head off the beaten track yet again. This time, we are not heading east to the panhandle, but down to Guzelyurt on the coastal plain. It means ‘beautiful place’ in Turkish, and as you drive through the orchards of orange trees and see the lemons, strawberries and pomegranates growing against the backdrop of the Trodos Mountains, you will admit that they have a point.
And then surprise yourself by taking a side trip to the completely unspoilt small town of Lefke with all its Turkish character, fine old buildings, three mosques, oh and a rather odd circular British storehouse built to mark the coronation of King George VI in 1937.
Conversely, therefore, we should end our tour of North Cyprus in the busy capital of Nicosia/Lefkosa. Being inland, it escaped the battering that many of the coastal towns took from the regular invaders. Instead, Nicosia/Lefkosa has become a town of transformations. Archbishops’ palaces turned into offices, churches metamorphosed into public baths and cathedrals into mosques — of which the best example is Selmiye Mosque, which was once St Sophia’s Cathedral. It looks just like a cathedral, except for the two minarets at one end. Very strange and very, well, North Cyprus.
And that’s the whole point about this under-developed side of Cyprus. It has evolved gradually over the years at a pace tall its own. No one has desecrated beautiful beaches with hotels of doubtful architectural style. No one has turned restful villages into binge drinking bazaars or thought to put the prices up either. So, the environment remains untouched — as should the wild donkeys and the 30 different types of orchid — the turtles swim, the lemons grow and the visitors carry on as they have done since, well, the 4th century Byzantines.
And if that isn’t getting off the beaten track, and all just over four hours flying time from the UK, it is hard to find what is.
