Lefkara

Hill village of lacemakers and silversmiths at 650 m, forty minutes from both Larnaca and Limassol, with hard-sell shopping

Pano Lefkara clings to a limestone hillside at about 650 m on the eastern edge of the Troodos, and it has made its living from two crafts for centuries: lefkaritika, the drawn-thread embroidery that UNESCO added to its intangible heritage list, and hand-worked silver. The village is a maze of stepped lanes, blue shutters, arched doorways and cats, all of it stone and all of it steep. Kato Lefkara, the lower village, is quieter and largely residential and worth the fifteen-minute walk down for the churches and the absence of shops.

You need to know about the selling. From mid-morning, women sit in doorways along the main lane with lace on their knees and will invite you in, and some of the shops are genuinely aggressive — you will be walked upstairs, given coffee and shown €400 tablecloths. Real hand-made lefkaritika is slow work and costs accordingly: a small mat is €30 to €60, anything larger runs into the hundreds. There is also a lot of imported machine-made cloth passed off casually. Buy from the shops attached to workshops, ask to see the work in progress, and if a large cloth is being offered at €25, it was not made here.

The rest of the village rewards you for nothing. The church of Timios Stavros holds a silver-cased cross and a small ecclesiastical collection; the Museum of Traditional Embroidery and Silversmithing occupies a restored eighteenth-century house on the main lane and is the honest way to understand the craft for a couple of euros. The lanes above the church are where the photographs are, and after about six in the evening they empty completely. Dinner is €16 to €22 in one of a handful of tavernas, and the local specialities are the loukoumi and the sweet preserves sold in every second doorway.

Book Lefkara if you like stone-village mornings, want a base equidistant from Larnaca, Limassol and Nicosia — each 40 to 50 minutes by motorway — and enjoy narrow lanes more than sunbeds. It suits a two- or three-night stop in a longer island tour. Skip it if you want the sea, since the nearest decent swim is 40 minutes away at Governor's Beach, and skip it if being pitched at all day would spoil your mood. Winter is cold, wet and largely shut on weekdays.

Where to stay in Lefkara

Beds here are restored stone houses and small guest houses, mostly on and just above the main lane through Pano Lefkara, with a few options down in Kato Lefkara for real quiet. Expect €50 to €85 for a good double in shoulder season and €85 to €120 in August, which is when Cypriots come up for the cooler nights. The lanes above the church of Timios Stavros are the best address: proper village atmosphere, views east towards the Larnaca plain, and out of range of the coach-hour bustle around the shops. Two practical points — most of these houses cannot be reached by car, so you will be carrying luggage up steps for a few minutes, and parking is in the marked lots at the village edges rather than outside your door. Avoid rooms directly over a lace shop unless you want the sales pitch as an alarm clock.

The essentials

Pano to Kato Lefkara loop (3 km)

Start at the church of Timios Stavros, climb the stepped lanes north for the roofline view over the whole village, then work back through the upper alleys to the main lane. Take the old path dropping southeast out of Pano Lefkara through olive terraces to Kato Lefkara, visit the church of Archangel Michael, and return on the quiet road, which climbs steadily with the limestone ridge above you the whole way.

Getting there & around

Lefkara sits just off the A1 Nicosia-Limassol motorway, which is what makes it such a convenient touring base: Larnaca Airport is about 40 minutes, Limassol 45, Nicosia 50 and Paphos an hour and forty. A taxi from Larnaca Airport runs €45 to €60. There is no regular scheduled bus that serves visitors usefully, so hire a car — rates from Larnaca start around €25 a day off-season. Park in the marked lots at the entrance to Pano Lefkara or on the lower approach road, because the village lanes are stepped and far too narrow to drive. From the car park, everything in the upper village is within a five-to-ten-minute walk, all of it uphill.