Lefkara Village

On a gentle limestone slope, this famous village is 40 km from Larnaka and 8 klms off the Larnaka- Limassol highway from Skarinou. A picturesque village full of tradition, beautiful local architecture with fascinating meandering narrow streets and wooden doors, windows and balconies, and with people acquiring the skills for handmade embroideries, making and beautifully decorating silverware and keeping the secrets of cooking “Lizo”, a special type of Turkish delight. “Lefkaritika”, which is the type of hand made lace made in Lefkara were well known in Europe since Medieval times and Leonardo Da Vinci is known to have visited the village in 1481 and bought an altar embroidered cloth, which he donated to Milan Cathedral.

At Kato Lefkara, or lower Lefkara the local architecture with its excellent stone built, red-tiled roofed traditional arched rural houses continue and there you can also visit the single-dome 12th century Byzantine church of Archangel Micael and see the surviving wall paintings of the same period. In courtyards of the houses look for the large jars or “pitharka” that they were used for storing olives, wine, olive oil, now a decorative element next to the flowers in the gardens.


Larnaca Mountainous Villages

Kato Drys is a village nearby Lefkara on the same limestone hills of the area. It’s the village where the Cypriot Saint Neophytos was borne in 1134 and became famous for being a contemporary to King Richard the Lion heard, but especially for his writings and his monastic life at Pafos. The village has peculiar “town” architecture of the early 20th century that reflects the developed taste of the wealthy village-emigrants investing at home.

Vavatsinia village is also nearby but, higher than Lefkara and Kato Drys. The surroundings of Vavatsinia feel like being on the Troodos range, which is true as you are at the easternmost area of the Troodos range, with same forest and geology and cool climate in the summer. On the same mountain of the same rich and varied flora comprised of trees and bushes you find the village Ayi Vavatsinias. Its microclimate conditions made it famous for its tangerines, mulberries, grapes and Zivania alcohol and vegetable production.

Worth visiting on the same mountain are the villages Ora, Melini and Odou. Ora is famous for the Oratios School, one of the first Greek Schools allowed by the Ottomans to operate in 1860 and built by wealthy emigrant Efthimios Oratis. Melini is very small. It is recorded to be inhabited since the first century AD, and connected with the life of the famous Cypriot Saint Heraklidios. Its church, Panagia Chryseleousa was built in 1721. Finally, Ora is amphitheatrically built in a deep small valley with uninterrupted and panoramic view towards the sea. Its nice traditional architecture around the huge centuries-old nettletree and its traditional wine and tastes are worth the experience.