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Our Love Began on Cyprus: Directed by Ilias Paraskevas. With Stelios Vokovich, Giorgos Kabanellis, Nelly Pappa, Kiki Diogou. On his way to Cyprus, the young businessman, Alkis Galanis, meets Martha, the wife of Major Gordon.
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- Ilias Paraskevas
Our Love Began on Cyprus (1960) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
On his way to Cyprus, the young businessman, Alkis Galanis, meets Martha, the wife of Major Gordon. In Nicosia, the situation is tense, as the resistance against the British...
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- Overview
- Dinner and the devout
- Preserving a wild coast
The pine-scented Troodos Mountains and turtle-nesting beaches of the Akamas Peninsula are a timeless antidote to the island’s sun-kissed resorts.
The ancient Greeks held that Cyprus was so beautiful, it was a playground of their gods and the birthplace of the fairest, Aphrodite, the goddess of love. While there’s little chance of bumping into any deities, travelers can find the Mediterranean island’s most timeless swaths on a drive through the Troodos Mountains and the sprawling Paphos Forest in the west of the country.
While tourism has altered its fringes, the interior of Cyprus suggests a time before cruise ships and resort holidays. To look out the car window here is to see life from another era, decades ago, perhaps, or maybe even centuries. By the roadside, a stooped woman with knees seemingly older than the hills climbs slowly toward the next village. Cats and dogs snooze in the sun. Behind them, buildings appear as though they’ve emerged from the mountains rather than been constructed.
My journey begins in Limassol, where I make my way to the Artemis Nature Trail, a four-hour hike named after the goddess of the wilderness that offers a satisfying route around Mount Olympos’ peak—the island’s highest mountain at 6,404 feet. Above, benevolent clouds seem to have snagged on the summit, offering a sort of parasol. Around me, a loose pine forest cloaks the mountainside, countless fallen cones lying at the feet of the trees, a billion pristine needles beside them.
I mostly have the trail to myself, which means I can appreciate the lichen hugging the tree trunks and spend what witnesses would likely describe as an embarrassing amount of time trying to photograph the local wildlife (mostly birds and butterflies). Defeated, I rest on a bench looking across Cyprus toward its contested north.
Following years of unrest, Turkey invaded this island just 62 miles west of Syria in July 1974, resulting in the loss of around 10,000 lives. Today Nicosia, invisible through the haze, is the world’s last divided capital city. Prior to the conflict, in the early 1950s the great British writer Lawrence Durrell chose a village in the now-seized territory to make his home, a bold decision that he detailed in his seminal, often hilarious novel, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus.
I let the car enjoy meandering downhill, stopping only to buy a bag of dried cherries from a farmer at the roadside. Nothing is too far away as the phoenix flies in the Troodos, but there’s rarely a chance to take a direct route. Tunnels are uncommon and roads tend to loop extravagantly around valleys like lines on a topographical map. As with village life, there seems no point in even attempting to rush; consequently, the driving is delightful, and scheduling must be flexible.
There are dozens of scenic mountain settlements in the island’s interior. “Such beauties as it had were in its hidden villages,” wrote Durrell of this region, “tucked into pockets and valleys among the foothills, some rich in apples and vines, some higher up smothered in bracken and pine.”
In recent years, small towns such as Kalopanagiotis have been developed and improved by the arrival of boutique hotels—new life has been breathed into old buildings that were crumbling into oblivion. Elsewhere, in Kakopetria, Cypriots like to escape the crushing heat of the coast and spend the evenings in the town square, drinking Keo beer on plastic chairs before shambling home to murder some karaoke late into the night.
I push on to the rose-scented village of Agros, where I pull up a chair outside Pezema Tavern and ask the waiter for some recommendations. He says he’ll bring me what he’d have. Not eating traditional halloumi cheese in Cyprus is proving to be something of an impossibility, so I’m a little relieved when I’m instead presented with a hearty salad and some village sausage.
“Nothing here comes from outside this valley,” says my new friend with the proud smile of a parent, before dropping off a glass of table wine. Is it too sweet? Right now, it hardly seems to matter. I fill my cheeks and eat slowly as the sun gently sinks behind the mountains. Around me, gangs of villainous cats skulk in the dark, drifting through alleys like wraiths, while in the night sky an eyelash of a new moon does little to illuminate the valley below.
Byzantine churches and monasteries dot the Cypriot interior; many are recognized by UNESCO and protected by locals. A site of worship since before Richard the Lionheart conquered Cyprus in the 12th century, today Kykkos Monastery is perhaps the finest and grandest religious institution anywhere on the island. As much a fortress as it is a church, it lies under a monolithic white cross that seems to challenge the rest of Cyprus to question its magnificence.
For the first 10 minutes of the drive to Lara Beach, I believe that reports of the road’s notoriety have been greatly exaggerated. Then, for the next half an hour, my faithful and much abused Toyota must traverse an unsealed, pot-holed route that violently reminds me to trust local advice in the future. While four-wheel drive vehicles and quad bikes zip past, I nervously bump down the road, making painstakingly slow progress toward the famous beach, flanked by the rolling Mediterranean and dusty scrubland.
Lara Beach is in the southern reaches of what’s now called the Akamas Peninsula National Park, perhaps the last untamed part of the island. The designation only came about in the last five years, but the extra protection national park status affords should go some way to help prevent significant human encroachment.
“I’ve had the Akamas in my heart since I first started touring here with people back in 1996,” says Paphos naturalist Andreas Tsokkalides. “It’s got fascinating geology, the virgin beaches, the mythology and history, plus the arrival of the turtles every summer. But for me, what makes it special is the amazing flora. There’s a plethora of wildflowers, including many different types of wild orchids, and for a few weeks only, there are two areas where you can spot the endangered Cyprus tulip.”
(Learn how locals are protecting Italy’s famed wildflower bloom from overtourism.)
The Akamas is home to 35 of the 142 endemic Cypriot plant species and was left undeveloped for years, thanks in part to the occupying British conducting military exercises in the region. It seems strange to consider conservation through annihilation, but had they been asked, the rare flora and fauna in the region would likely have accepted the odd mortar going off or squaddie trampling over them for a better chance at long-term survival.
The isolation of Lara Beach means that it’s also one of Europe’s largest nesting sites for endangered green and hawksbill turtles. While their nests are clearly marked by volunteers and surrounded by signs too large to ignore, the creatures’ future is perilous enough that local conservation groups gather turtle eggs in June and July and transport them to a hatchery to give the babies a better chance of at least making it to the ocean.
- Jamie Lafferty
Jun 27, 2022 · 1 Petra tou Romiou and the Myth of Aphrodite. Halfway between Limassol and Pafos, a distinctive group of huge rocks are scattered just offshore and according to mythology this is the point where Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, emerged from the waves to begin her life in Cyprus.
Bless the isle of Cyprus and our noble general Othello! (2.2) In this quote—which comprises an entire scene—Othello’s herald announces a huge feast in Cyprus to celebrate the sinking of the Turkish fleet and the marriage of Othello and Desdemona.
