Geopark Visitor Centre
One of the Troodos region’s newest and most interesting ventures is the Geopark Visitor Centre, some 6km east of Troodos village and clearly signposted from the B9 road to Nicosia. Opened in 2015 in the abandoned Amiantos asbestos mine (don’t worry, visitors are assured that it’s quite safe), it’s a recognition of the global significance of the Troodos Massif as a uniquely important geological playground, a magnet for academics and students from around the world. The centre, in a converted school, offers a fifteen-minute visual presentation on the geology of the Troodos Mountains, and a series of displays distributed between five rooms covering the geology and ecology of Cyprus, and its copper and asbestos mining industries. Future plans include visitor entry into the open-cast works of the asbestos mine. Geology may seem something of a niche interest, but if you’re intrigued by the huge variation in rock formations you can see as you pass through the Troodos Mountains, then the centre is well worth a visit.
Machairas
East of Pitsilia, the MACHAIRAS region feels even more remote, a fact that is reflected in its total lack of hotels – even villages are few and far between. It is, however, a favourite day-trip destination for Lefkosians, and does have a number of attractions, including a monastery very much associated with EOKA, and a museum village, while its mountains and forests have more of an alpine feel than anywhere else in the Troodos range.
Macharias is signposted along the E902 from Strovolos on the outskirts of Lefkosia, from where an invigorating forest drive via Politiko and Pera brings you to its monastery via the extensive picnic grounds at Mandra Kambiou.
Fikardou
The carefully conserved mountain village of FIKARDOU lies northwest of Panagia tou Machaira Monastery, and can be approached from there via Lazanias or from the west via Gourri. Either way, you enter the village on the E916. Though somewhat “preserved-in-aspic”, it provides an excellent idea of what a Cypriot mountain village of the eighteenth or nineteenth century would have looked like.
The first building you encounter when you finally climb up into the village is the Church of the Apostles St Peter and St Paul on the left. A pretty little stone and clay-tile-roofed building, it is set into the hillside below the road. In front of it lie graves which must have some of the best views in Cyprus. Across the road, on the hillside and with equally fine views, stands a memorial to four local men who died during the 1974 invasion. Immediately ahead is the village’s coffee house and restaurant Yiannakos, tucked into a steep hairpin bend. Two-storey traditional houses are stacked up the hillside, each with straw-flecked mud walls and capped by mellow red/brown tile roofs. (The ground floor was used for making and storing wine and other farm produce, while the first floor housed the people.) The organic nature of the village speaks for itself – the buildings seem to grow out of the hillside.
Two of Fikardou’s old houses have been opened to the public – the House of Katsiniorou, named after its last owner and owing its plan and features to the sixteenth century, has been turned into a rural museum. Furnishings, tools and utensils from the past are on show, together with photographs, plans, drawings and texts illustrating the process of preservation. The House of Achilleas Dimitri has been furnished as a weaver’s workshop and also acts as a guest house.
Machairas Monastery
Lying in the forests southeast of the village of Lazanias, and commanding wonderful views of the surrounding mountains, Panagia tou Machaira Monastery, like Kykkos, is very well maintained and exudes a sense of prosperous decorum. The story of its foundation follows the usual formula – a miraculous icon, one of seventy painted by the Apostle Luke, was brought here from Asia Minor by an unknown ascetic during the iconoclastic period. Hidden in a cave, it was discovered (probably by revealing itself with a divine glow) by two hermits – Neophytos and Ignatios – who’d arrived in the area from Palestine. To reach it, they needed to hack away the undergrowth, and a divine hand kindly provided the sword or “machairi”. Ignatios founded the church in 1172 AD, which later expanded into a monastery. Fire destroyed the buildings in 1530 and 1892, but the icon, encased in silver, survived.
The monastery also played a role in the fight for Cypriot independence. EOKA’s second-in-command, Gregoris Afxentiou, hid here, disguised as a monk, and eventually met a martyr’s death at the hands of the British – the cave in which he was trapped lies about 1km below the monastery, and is marked with a flag and commemorative tablet. There’s a small museum dedicated to his short life (it’s to the right of the ramp that leads down to the monastery terrace from the road), and on the terrace itself stands a gigantic statue of the man and the bird (an eagle) from which he derived his nom de guerre. Dashing and heroic though Afxentiou certainly was, he is perhaps ill-served by the huge and flamboyant statue erected in his honour on the monastery terrace.
Grigoris Afxentiou: the gentleman soldier
While the names of Archbishop Makarios III and George Grivas loom large in the fight for Cypriot independence, within the Greek Cypriot community Grigoris Afxentiou is probably the man held in the greatest honour and affection. Even his notional enemies in the British Army held him in high regard – one British officer is reported as saying to Afxentiou’s father, “I want to congratulate you on having such a splendid son”. Grigoris Afxentiou is a clear-cut, old-fashioned, popular idol whose early death at the age of 29 in a heroic last stand against the occupying forces is the stuff of legend.
Afxentiou was born on February 22, 1928 in the village of Lysi (now in the north and called Akdogan) and became committed to Cypriot independence and enosis from an early age. He joined the Greek army as a volunteer in 1949, and reached the rank of second lieutenant. When he heard that EOKA were recruiting, he joined up. His intelligence and potential were immediately recognized by Grivas, who took him under his wing and personally saw to his training in guerrilla warfare. Afxentiou was entrusted with blowing up the Cyprus Broadcasting station in Lefkosia during the night of simultaneous explosions that kicked off the fight against British rule on April 1, 1955. Having been recognized, he went on the run with a group of fighters in the Kyrenia mountains where he became Grivas’s second-in-command.
For the next two years Afxentiou moved around the Troodos Mountains, training guerrillas and attacking British positions and convoys. He became one of the British Army’s “most wanted”, with a price of £5000 on his head. He narrowly evaded capture at the Battle of Spilia, and again at Zoopigi a year later. His time ran out in March, 1957 when he was tracked down to the Machairas Monastery, where, with the help of the abbot, Irineos, he had been living disguised as a priest. Below the monastery in an underground hideout, he ordered the four men who were with him to surrender, but decided to fight to the death himself. Unable to capture him without serious losses, the British soldiers finally poured petrol into the hideout, ignited it, and followed up with explosives. Afxentiou had finally been killed.
His widespread popularity among Greek Cypriots since his death can be explained by a number of factors. Compared to Grivas, he was a careful strategist, planning actions to minimize loss of life. He was even understanding towards informers, refusing to execute one man on the grounds that his wife had recently had a baby. His commitment to the cause of freedom and union with Greece was simple and straightforward, without the ferocious hatred of the left that consumed Grivas. And finally, by dying when he did, his reputation was never compromised by the sorts of fudges that post-independence politics invariably required.
Marathasa
The MARATHASA region, lying north and west of Mount Olympos and the Troodos region, is dotted with villages and is relatively unspoilt. As well as its three painted Byzantine churches in successive villages along the Marathasa river, it hosts the richest and most famous monastery on the island at Kykkos. It is also famed for its cool-weather fruit, particularly cherries and apples, and is particularly attractive in spring when the trees are in full blossom.
Kykkos Monastery and around
The monastery of Panagia tou Kykkou, widely known simply as “Kykkos”, is the most famous in Cyprus. Located on the far edge of the Troodos area, 15km west of Pedoulas and the Marathasa valley, it’s often dismissed because its buildings are relatively modern, but it will tell you more about Greek Cypriots and their religion today than all the more venerable churches of Troodos put together. With its mixture of religious observance and commercial enterprise, the presence of national hero President Makarios’s tomb and the nearby EOKA hideouts, it’s a must-visit for anybody trying to get a handle on modern Cyprus.
The original monastery was established at the end of the eleventh century by the Byzantine Emperor, though none of the original buildings has survived the numerous fires that have swept through the region. Nothing in the current monastery pre-dates the last fire in 1831, and much of it is later than that, though the famous icon of the Virgin Mary seems to have miraculously survived.
The Kykkos Monastery is the richest on the island and it shows. Its buildings are pristine and immaculately maintained, its murals vivid and bright, its monks numerous. This wealth grew partly because of the pulling power of the icon, and partly because, during Ottoman times, many people chose to donate their money to the church rather than see it whittled away by heavy Ottoman taxes. On entry, through a highly decorated porch, you walk into a handsome courtyard with a museum at the far left and, above the monastery roof, a wooded hillside with a recently built bell tower. Beyond the main courtyard the visitor is free to explore a series of passageways and flights of steps and paved courtyards that can’t seem to muster a right angle between them.
The Monastery Museum, up a flight of steps from the main courtyard and unexpectedly huge, is organized into antiquities (pre-Christian artefacts) and documents (on the left as you enter), vessels, vestments and ornaments from the early Christian and Byzantine periods and after in the main room, then icons, frescoes and woodcarving (on the left), and manuscripts, documents and books (on the right). Though of limited lay interest, nobody could fail to be impressed by the comprehensiveness of the collections and the lush complexity of the exhibits.
The monastery church is opulent even by Greek Orthodox standards, and is lined with icons (including the famous one of the Virgin, in its own silver, tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl protective case), usually busy being kissed by a line of supplicants. Nearby is a brass or bronze arm, the result of a punishment, it is said, meted out by the Virgin to a Turk who had the temerity to light a cigarette from one of the sanctuary lamps, and, a more cheerful story, the blade of a swordfish, presented by a sailor who was saved from drowning by the Queen of Heaven. The church and the courtyard outside it often becomes packed with people at weekends – some attending weddings or christenings, some making pious pilgrimage, others simply having a day out.
Makarios – priest, politician and president
Born into poverty on August 13, 1913, in the village of Panagia in eastern Pafos district, Makarios (then known as Michaelis Mouskos) became a novice at Kykkos Monastery at the age of 13, before continuing his education at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Lefkosia. After graduation, he went on to study in Greece and Turkey (hence his rather unexpected facility with the Turkish language), and finally Boston in the US.
In 1948 he became Bishop of Kition (Larnaka), and two years later Archbishop of Cyprus. It was at this time that he took the clerical name of Makarios III. He was now not only the religious leader of the Greek Cypriot community in Cyprus, but their de facto political leader. One of his first actions was to carry out a plebiscite on union with Greece (“enosis”) – 96 percent of Greek Cypriots voted in favour. It goes without saying that the Turkish Cypriot community were against enosis from the start, fearing for their position if the island became a province of Greece.
As the 1950s progressed, the so-called “Cyprus Problem” became increasingly high profile, with EOKA (the right-wing organization led by George Grivas) carrying out a guerrilla war from April 1, 1955 within Cyprus, and the Greek government pushing hard in the UN for an end to British rule and unification with Greece. Makarios, strongly identified with this opposition to British rule, was eventually exiled to the Seychelles in March 1956. After a year, he was released with the proviso that he did not return to Cyprus. He settled instead in Athens, from which base he travelled the world, drumming up support for his cause, particularly among non-aligned countries and the Soviet Union.
In 1959, amidst continued violence across the island, Makarios accepted an offer of independence from the British, but without enosis. This provoked predictable disgust and fury among EOKA, and accusations that he had sold out, even that he’d been blackmailed into acceptance by the British Secret Service. No such scenario is needed, though, to explain his actions. Faced with a choice of leading a distant province of Greece or a proudly independent country, it really was a no-brainer. Makarios was duly elected president of the new Republic of Cyprus on 14 December.
As the new decade dawned, Makarios realized he was presiding over an unenviable situation. Turkish Cypriots, supported by Turkey, would accept no move towards enosis, while the Greek Cypriot right, supported by Greece, would accept nothing less. The imposition of a virtually unworkable constitution didn’t help either. He also had little control over the hawkish General Grivas who was intent on military action against Turkish Cypriot armed enclaves, which were becoming almost a state within a state. Finally, when a right-wing junta seized power in Greece in 1967, the left-leaning Makarios came out openly against enosis, explaining that it would be beneficial to have two Greek voices at the UN rather than one. He began to try to build bridges with the Turkish Cypriots.
Between 1970 and 1974 there were numerous attempts by the junta and the CIA to assassinate Makarios (Nixon allegedly called him “Castro in a cassock”). Finally, on July 15, 1974 the National Guard and EOKA B rose up in rebellion, deposed Makarios (who fled abroad), and set up a right-wing administration. This provoked the catastrophic response of a full-scale Turkish invasion of the north, and partition. When the dust had settled, Makarios returned from abroad to resume as president of a now divided island. He died suddenly of a heart attack in August 1977.
Makarios undoubtedly made many mistakes during his period of office, though it seems unlikely anyone could have managed the ticking time bomb that he inherited. Certainly, blame for the 1974 Turkish invasion could not be laid at his door. His pragmatism, his undoubted political skills and above all his commitment to the people of Cyprus have ensured that he is held in widespread and lasting affection in the modern republic, something which cannot be said of his militaristic rival George Grivas. On the other hand, unsurprisingly, he was not popular among Turkish Cypriots. While his body was lying in state in Agios Ioannis Cathedral in Lefkosia, the capital suffered an unprecedented August downpour. Greek Cypriots quoted an old Greek saying – “God cries when a good man dies”. Turkish Cypriots came back with one of their own – “When an evil man dies, the heavens try to wash away his crimes”.
The Icon of the Virgin at Kykkos
According to tradition, the Kykkos Monastery was established in the twelfth century AD by a hermit called Esaias, who lived a life of simple piety in the region’s woods. One day the Byzantine governor of Cyprus, Manuel Voutoumites, was hunting in the area and got lost. Coming across Esaias, he asked the way, only to be ignored by the holy man, whose mind was on higher things. As you might expect, the politician took offence at the perceived slight, berating the hermit, or even, according to some versions, giving him a good hiding. Having returned to Lefkosia, Voutoumites contracted a terrible disease and, surmising that this was his punishment for his maltreatment of the holy man, appealed to God to cure him so that he could seek forgiveness. This wish met with divine agreement, but when Voutoumites finally tracked down the hermit and apologized, Esaias set him a task. A famous icon of the Virgin Mary, painted by the Apostle Luke while the Virgin was still alive, and lodged in the Imperial Palace at Constantinople, must be brought to Cyprus. The governor and the sage set off for Constantinople on what Voutoumites considered to be a wild goose chase – he could see no way in which the emperor would accede to the request. But the almighty intervened again. The emperor’s daughter contracted the same disease that had laid Voutoumites low, and he was forced to agree to the icon’s export to Cyprus in order to save her. The icon has been lodged in the monastery ever since.
Xistarouda picnic site
Some 6km east of Kykkos, on the right of the E912, lies one of the picnic sites at which the Troodos Mountains excel. Xistarouda has a roofed barbecue area, numerous picnic tables on a series of stone-faced terraces under tall and shady trees, and toilets. Because it’s on the main route to the Kykkos Monastery, it gets very busy, especially at weekends, with families erecting gazebos and portable barbecues and setting themselves up for the afternoon.
Pedoulas
In the Marathasa Valley north of Prodromos, PEDOULAS is an attractive place, whose buildings tumble down the hillside in a series of terraces – a view only slightly marred by a scattering of rusted corrugated-iron roofs. The village, notable mainly for its painted church, was established during the Byzantine period by refugees fleeing Arab coastal raids, though the origin of its name is somewhat in doubt – perhaps it refers to the shoe and sandal makers who once plied their trade here (“pedila” being the word for sandal). Pedoulas packs in all the services you might need. Like many settlements in these mountains, its serpentine lanes are something of a maze – probably the easiest way to get orientated is from the huge white Church of the Holy Cross in the centre (not the painted church for which the village is famous). As you explore, look out for the statue of Archbishop Makarios III on the main (upper) street, the large monument to Aristides Charalambous, a local man who died during the independence struggle, and in particular (you can’t miss it – it dominates the skyline above the village) the white 25m-high Cross of Fithkia, which stands next to a modern chapel.
Archangelos Michaelis Church
Pedoulas’s Archangelos Michaelis Church (accessed down a steep lane from the Church of the Holy Cross) is one of the ten “painted churches of the Troodos Region” that have been declared by UNESCO as being a collective World Heritage Site. Distinctive because of its tiled roof, which on one side sweeps down almost to ground level, the church is easy to date – a dedication over the north door says that it was built by “the most honourable priest Lord Basil, son of Chamades” and painted in 1474. The dedication also seeks forgiveness of sins for Basil, his wife and two daughters – a portrait of them donating the church to the Archangel provides an illustration of the fashions of the time. A further dedication (on the beam across the west wall) reveals that the artist was “Menas from Myrianthousa” (ie the Marathasa Valley). As is usually the case in these churches, the walls are divided into a lower zone populated by a host of individual saints and an upper one illustrating scenes from the Bible, including the Birth of the Virgin, Her Presentation to the Temple, the Annunciation, the Birth of Christ, His Baptism, Betrayal, Crucifixion and so on. The more you know your Bible, the more you’ll appreciate the murals, but even the non-religious can’t help but be impressed by the vividness of the colours, despite some fading over the centuries.