Things To Do in Nicosia Cyprus

Divided City

Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world. The UN Buffer Zone — the Green Line — runs through the historic center, separating the Republic of Cyprus to the south from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to the north, a status recognised internationally only by Turkey. The Ledra Street crossing is the main pedestrian checkpoint between the two sides, and walking from one to the other in the space of a few minutes offers an encounter with a political situation that has been frozen since 1974 in a way that is still immediate and unresolved.

Old City and Architecture

The old city of Nicosia is enclosed within 16th-century Venetian walls — an eleven-pointed star of bastions built in a single intense decade of construction — which remain largely complete and now support a ring road and public gardens. Inside the walls, the city is a mixture of Byzantine churches, Ottoman mosques, and the colonial architecture of the British period, each layer deposited over a medieval street plan that connects them in close proximity. The Laïki Yitonia pedestrian district is the most visited part of the old city, though the less-polished streets further in are more rewarding.

Food and Meze

Cypriot meze — the tradition of serving a succession of small dishes rather than a single main course — is at its best in Nicosia, where the interior tradition of cooking with lamb, halloumi, village bread, and the full range of Cypriot mezes is maintained in the tavernas of the old city and the suburbs. The food is more robust and less seafood-focused than the coastal resorts, reflecting the agricultural character of the inland plateau. Halloumi cheese, produced in Cyprus since at least the 16th century, is a constant presence and the best examples are found here rather than in the version exported worldwide.

Arts and Contemporary Culture

Nicosia has a growing contemporary arts scene, centered on the galleries and creative spaces of the Engomi and Strovolos districts. The Nicosia Municipal Arts Center and the Leventis Municipal Museum hold significant collections of Cypriot art and cultural history. The city's theatre scene runs throughout the winter season with both Cypriot and international productions, and the annual Kypria International Festival brings performing arts of international calibre to a city that has worked consistently to build cultural infrastructure beyond its relatively modest size.

The Divided City, the Buffer Zone and Cyprus's Living History

Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world, separated since 1974 by the United Nations Buffer Zone — known locally as the Green Line — that runs through the heart of the old city. The crossing points at Ledra Street and the Ledra Palace Hotel allow visitors to pass between the southern, Greek Cypriot controlled city and the northern, Turkish Cypriot administered part in what remains one of the most striking urban border experiences in Europe. The old town within the Venetian walls, built by the Venetians between 1567 and 1570 in a distinctive eleven-pointed star pattern that remains almost entirely intact, contains the Cyprus Museum, the national archaeological collection and the most comprehensive repository of Cypriot antiquities from the Neolithic through the Roman period. The Leventis Municipal Museum documents the history of Nicosia from antiquity to the present in a well-designed collection housed in a restored 19th-century building in the old town. The Chrysaliniotissa Crafts Center, in the oldest surviving neighbourhood of the walled city, houses workshops of traditional crafts including weaving, silverwork, and pottery in a quarter that has been steadily revived after decades of decline near the buffer zone. The Nicosia Municipal Arts Center (NiMAC), in the former power station, programs contemporary art and performance in a building whose conversion has become a model for the regeneration of the buffer zone periphery. The Faneromeni Church and the surrounding quarter of the old town, with its restored Ottoman-era buildings, workshops, and the weekly street market, give the southern part of the walled city a neighbourhood texture that survives the tourist pressure of the central streets. The Cyprus Contemporary Art Museum and the Nicosia Municipal Gallery program contemporary Cypriot and international art in a city where the cultural scene operates with a vitality that the political situation tends to obscure in international coverage. The traditional Cypriot lace-making tradition of lefkaritika, a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, is demonstrated and sold in workshops around the old town, alongside silver filigree jewellery and ceramic traditions that trace continuous production in Cyprus back over three millennia. The proximity of Nicosia to the coastal resorts and ancient sites of both the south and north of the island makes it an efficient base for exploring Cyprus more broadly. The Nicosia Arts Festival each June programs outdoor performances, concerts, and theatre in the moat of the Venetian walls, using the city's fortifications as a performance venue in a way that brings the old town's heritage into active civic use and draws audiences from across the island.