Oh yes, and the entire country only has about 20 sets of traffic lights and they drive on the left. And it's so cheap to gamble in the casinos that a tenner buys you a stack of roulette chips about 6ft high. This hotspot even has its own ghost city.
The tourist board calls Northern Cyprus "a corner of Earth touched by Heaven" and who am I to argue? It has always been one of the best-kept secrets in the travel business, and now it's easier than ever to get there.
The normal way is a three-and-a-half-hour flight to Turkey first, then wait on the tarmac for an hour as it becomes a domestic flight, and then fly the final one-hour leg to Northern Cyprus. But now that the previously-impregnable border between the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus and Greek Cyprus in the south has been opened up, Brits can fly direct to Larnaca in the south in four hours and then be driven across the frontier to their tourist hotels in Northern Cyprus.
Whichever way you choose, it's well worth going. There are only 70,000 tourists a year, so you're never going to be crowded. There are 340 days of sunshine, with long, dry summers from mid-May to mid-October, and a mild winter from December to February.
The top tourist spot is Kyrenia, with a stunning harbour lined with old warehouses converted into bars and restaurants. And at the end of it is the castle where Richard the Lionheart, on his way from England to the Crusades, spent his honeymoon with Queen Berengaria in 1191.
The restaurants there specialise in meze - starting with a dozen little dishes like houmous and yoghurt, then fresh fish, then a dessert dripping with honey, and a Turkish coffee, plus a bottle of Turkish wine like Cankaya (Northern Cyprus makes its own wine, like Othello or St Hilarion, but it's an acquired taste!) - all for about £25 for two.
Meat-lovers should wander round from the harbour to find Niazi's restaurant, which is almost opposite the legendary Dome Hotel (built in 1935, and a favourite of colonial Brits, with its sea water pool and terrace). You get all the meze dishes there, with wine or beer, but this time there's a waistline-bursting succession of lamb chops, sausages and kebabs, cooked on a grill in front of you. And that, including wine, is just £22 for two. Gordon Ramsay, eat your heart out...
Anybody feeling energetic enough after a lunch like that can take a trip up the mountains on the edge of Kyrenia and then make a final dizzying climb up what seems like millions of steps into the ruins of St Hilarion Castle, which Walt Disney allegedly based his fairytale movie castles on. The view from the top (on a clear day you'll see Turkey in the distance) is awesome. If you hire a car and venture further afield (you can get anywhere in about two hours) you'll find that the EU is pouring millons into Northern Cyprus these days to put in new roads and revitalise remote villages with "agro-tourism." In the local coffee shop in one of them I met a little old lady from Nazeing in Essex, who left 40 years ago but still returns for three months every winter. As she put it, a nice man from the EU came along and offered her 26,000 euros to tart up her house in the village and rent it out to tourists. The same nice man, who I suspect must come from Holland, also plans to put in fields of tulips and bike paths round the village (while he's at it, my place in London could do with a lick of paint if he's got another 26,000 euros to spare...)
You'll also find villas for sale, mainly to Brits, being put up everywhere, in the expectation that the two halves of Cyprus will eventually be reunited and property prices in the north will soar. You can pick up a flat in Kyrenia for as little as £30,000 and a four-bedroom villa with its own pool is only about £120,000. So, not surprisingly, they're selling like hot cakes.
The other places to visit include Famagusta, the ancient< |
