Nicosia
Overview
Nicosia (Lefkosia in Greek, Lefkoşa in Turkish) is the world's last divided capital — split since 1974, and crossed on foot in seconds at Ledra Street in the middle of the shopping district. Within the Venetian walls that encircle both halves, visitors encounter Gothic cathedrals converted to mosques, Byzantine monasteries, Ottoman bazaars, and one of the finest archaeological museums in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Travel
Nicosia is unlike any other European capital, and its division is immediately visible on the ground. The Old City sits inside a nearly perfect circular ring of Venetian walls from the 1560s — eleven pointed bastions, a masterpiece of Renaissance military engineering, still largely intact. Inside, the city is separated by a strip of closed buildings and observation posts running from one side to the other, crossed on foot at Ledra Street. In the Greek Cypriot south: the Cyprus Museum (the island's best collection, Bronze Age through Byzantine), the Cathedral of Saint John (fine 18th-century frescoes), the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia, and the pleasant Laiki Geitonia neighbourhood with restored Ottoman-period houses. In the Turkish Cypriot north: the Selimiye Mosque (the converted Lusignan Cathedral of Saint Sophia, one of the finest Gothic buildings in the region), the Büyük Han (the Great Inn, a magnificent 16th-century Ottoman caravanserai, now an arts centre), the Bedesten (a covered bazaar in a 14th-century Byzantine church), and the Venetian Column in Atatürk Square. Nicosia is the island's commercial and administrative capital — busier, more lived-in and less tourist-oriented than the coastal resorts, and the more rewarding city for anyone interested in history and art.
Nicosia's Venetian walls, completed in 1567 on the design of Giulio Savorgnan, form one of the most complete Renaissance fortification systems in existence — an almost perfect circle of earthen ramparts 4.5 kilometres in circumference with eleven diamond-shaped bastions. The walls were built to resist cannon and did not succeed in 1570, but they survived the centuries intact. All three of the original gates still stand: the Famagusta Gate (now a cultural centre with a vaulted passage), the Paphos Gate, and the Kyrenia Gate (now in the Turkish Cypriot sector). The walls divide Nicosia from the modern suburbs but also enclose the entirety of the Old City — the most historic and culturally dense part of the capital. Beyond the suburbs, the district around the city runs south into the foothills toward a mountain monastery and the remains of an ancient copper kingdom.
Diplomatic missions in Nicosia
3 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.
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