Saturday 17th November 2018 - Nicosia

It wasn’t quite such an early start today, but we were in the coach by 9.30 and off to Nicosia. Paul forgot to bring his passport so we couldn’t go across to the Greek side, but Paul said he didn’t care anyway. We drove into the city past the ‘green line’ and were shown the area of now derelict houses along it and the Greek flag on buildings beyond. 

As we travelled, our guide gave us some of the history of the area. Remains in the south west of the city date back to the Bronze Age, four and a half thousand years ago. Later it became a city state known as Ledra, one of the twelve kingdoms of ancient Cyprus built, it is believed, by Achaean Greeks after the end of the Trojan War. According to tradition, the city was then rebuilt by the son of Ptolemy l of Egypt between 312 and 285 BC.  In Byzantine times, the town was also referred to as Lefkosia, and this is still its Turkish name today.

After the destruction of Salamis, the existing capital of Cyprus, by Arab raids in 647, Nicosia became the capital of the island around 965. The Byzantines moved the island's administration seat to Nicosia primarily for security reasons as coastal towns often suffered from Arab raids. From then on it has remained as the capital of Cyprus. A castle was built and Nicosia became the seat of the Byzantine governor of Cyprus. 

When Richard the Lionheart captured Cyprus and then gave it to Guy de Lusignan, the Frankish rulers could not, or would not, pronounce the name Lefkosia and instead called it Nicosia. They began the city fortifications, but these were destroyed by the Venetians when they took over Cyprus and considered that the walls were inadequate and so built new ones. Parts of these walls can still be seen today. There were three gates, Kyrenia Gate in the north, Paphos Gate to the west and to the east Famagusta Gate. Until cars arrived in Cyprus in the 1920s, our guide told us that the gates were closed between sunset and sunrise, so you couldn’t get into the city at night. There are no gates in place now, but you can still see where they were.

We got out of the coach at the Kyrenia Gate.

That was the gatehouse in the middle. There is a road on either side of it where the gates used to be, and on the left of my photo you can see part of the walls.

We walked down to the main square, Sarayönü Square, where there is a column originally brought from the ruins of Salamis and erected in Nicosia by the Venetians in 1570. 

It was then topped by the lion of St Mark. The Ottoman rulers removed the column when they ruled Cyprus, and the British re-erected it in 1915 when they ruled Cyprus. The lion of St Mark on the top could not be found, so it was replaced with a bronze orb.

The square is surrounded by colonial era buildings also erected by the British.

I think this used to be the Law Courts. It is now an administrative building.

From here we walked down to the Great Khan, a caravanserai built by the Ottoman rulers in 1572. It is the largest caravanserai in Cyprus.

It has been extensively renovated and is now an arts and crafts centre, housing small craft shops and restaurants, but when it was first built, the shops were outside. The ground floor rooms were largely stables, and the arches were high to accommodate camels. The upper floor had sleeping quarters for the travellers who stayed there. 

I absolutely loved it, it looks almost like something out of The Arabian Nights (if you discount the many restaurants), and I almost expected to see the central courtyard filled with camels! I also appreciated the opportunity to buy real crafts from the local area.

We next paid a visit to the Selimiye Mosque, which used to be the Cathedral of St Sophia.

It was built during the Lusignan period, between 1290 and 1326, and was the primary church in Cyprus, where coronations took place. It was designed by French architects in the French gothic style and built by French masons.

I couldn’t get far enough away for an overall view, but this is the entrance, looking like any French Cathedral. But after the Ottoman conquest of 1571, it was converted into a mosque. Minarets were added a year later.

So we sat outside and took off our shoes and I covered my head with my scarf and we went inside.

Our guide told us that under the carpet were many crusader tombs.

After that, it was virtually midday, a few people were coming in to the mosque to pray, and it was time for the Whirling Dervishes performance. Now this is something I have wanted to see since I was about 15 and read about them in one of my father’s books, so I obliged a somewhat reluctant Paul to attend the performance, which I don’t think he would otherwise have considered. 

The order of Whirling Dervishes was founded by the followers of the 13th Century Persian poet and mystic Rumi after his death. They were Sufi, a mystical and ascetic Islam practiced by tens of millions of Muslims; Sufi follow the five pillars of Islam like any Moslem, but one of their central practices is to recite divine verses and intone the name of Allah. It can be performed individually or in a group, and can be quiet or out loud. In the case of the Whirling Dervishes, this remembrance of God is performed by whirling. The dervish whirls for the love of God, and hopes to purify his sins and share the positive energy he creates for ‘the sake of love and brotherhood’.

I would post a video here of the whirling, but this application only allows me to add videos from the internet, not from my iPad. And no still photograph can convey the reality I’m afraid.

The whole thing is symbolic. The Dervish believes that the present is short and passes quickly, but the world after death is far more important. The hat on his head represents the grave stone, and the black of the sash and the coat represents sin and the grave. The white clothes he wears represents the shroud. During the whirling, his right arm will be raised to the sky and his left arm faces the earth, and the positive energy he creates passes from his right arm to his left and down to the earth so that he can share it with humanity and all living things. 

It remains a mystery to me why they don’t get dizzy and stagger about, as they whirl reasonably fast and for quite a long period. At the end, nobody knew whether to clap or not - is it appropriate to applaud worship? I still have no idea. 

The performance was held in what used to be St Nicholas Church, adjacent to the mosque we had visited first.

This was originally a small Byzantine church built in the 6th century whose ruins were used by the Lusignan rulers to construct a larger church in the gothic style in the 14th century. The  doorway has many similarities with the adjacent ex-Cathedral. It ceased being a church under the Ottoman rulers and was used variously as a market and for storage. It was abandoned in the early 20th century but has recently been renovated and restored. 

It being lunch time by then, we returned to the Great Khan to have some lunch. We find it quite difficult to avoid eating a full meal at lunch time, sandwiches seem unknown wherever we look. So today we opted for hummus and tzaksiki and pita bread.

By the end of lunch the sun had gone in and it was windy, and Paul was very cold. He had left his fleece in the bus, so he had to wear my cardigan. Fortunately he became a bit warmer as we walked about taking photographs and looking at the shops.  We would have visited museums, but apparently they are shut at weekends! 

Eventually we made our way back to the bus, and back to Kyrenia.