Christmas in Northern Cyprus, quiet and mild

Cyprus has been divided since 1974. The south is the Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union. The north is administered by the Turkish Cypriots and recognised as a separate state only by Turkey. A buffer zone patrolled by the United Nations, the Green Line, runs between them, through the middle of the capital, Nicosia. Since 2003 there have been crossing points open to visitors, and many people now fly into Larnaca in the south and cross by road into the north.

The north is the less visited side of the island, and in winter it is very quiet indeed. December is mild, with days that are often sunny and pleasant for walking, and nights that are cool. There is some rain, and the sea is too cold for most swimmers. Most Turkish Cypriots are Muslim, so Christmas is not a public celebration in the north as it is in the south. For anyone hoping to spend the season quietly, among old stones and orange groves, that is part of the appeal.

Kyrenia, Bellapais and St Hilarion

Kyrenia, on the north coast, has one of the prettiest harbours in the eastern Mediterranean. It is a horseshoe of old stone warehouses, now cafés and restaurants, below a massive castle built and rebuilt by Byzantines, Crusaders and Venetians. Inside the castle is the wreck of a merchant ship that sank off the coast in the fourth century BC. It is one of the oldest ships ever recovered, with its cargo of wine jars and almonds.

Behind the town rises the long limestone ridge of the Kyrenia mountains. In the village of Bellapais, the ruined Gothic abbey built by Augustinian canons in the thirteenth century stands among cypresses above the coast. The writer Lawrence Durrell lived in the village in the 1950s and wrote about it in Bitter Lemons. Higher still, on a jagged peak, are the ruins of St Hilarion, a Byzantine and Crusader castle that climbs the rock in three levels. On a clear winter day the view from the top reaches across the sea to the mountains of Turkey.

Famagusta and Salamis

On the east coast, Famagusta was one of the richest ports of the medieval Mediterranean, and its Venetian walls survive almost entire. Within them, the great Gothic cathedral of St Nicholas, where the Lusignan kings of Cyprus were crowned kings of Jerusalem, became a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of 1571. It now has a minaret beside its French Gothic façade. Ruined churches stand all over the old town.

A few kilometres north are the ruins of Salamis, for centuries the greatest city on the island. Its Roman gymnasium, colonnades and theatre stand among sand dunes and pine trees by the sea, and in winter you may well have them almost to yourself.

Nicosia and the Karpas

Nicosia is often described as the last divided capital in Europe, and walking through it explains the island's recent history better than any book. In the northern half of the old city, inside its circle of Venetian walls, the Gothic cathedral of St Sophia, where the Lusignan kings were crowned, has been the Selimiye Mosque since the Ottoman conquest, its two minarets rising from the towers of the west front. Nearby, the Büyük Han, a sixteenth-century Ottoman caravanserai built around a courtyard, now houses craft shops and cafés. On foot, the crossing point into the southern half of the city is only a few minutes away.

Just You's Christmas in Northern Cyprus, seven nights for solo travellers, covers Kyrenia, Bellapais and Famagusta. It also visits the northern half of Nicosia, with its Venetian walls and its Gothic cathedral turned mosque, Güzelyurt among the citrus groves of the west, Salamis, and the Karpas Peninsula. The Karpas is the island's long, thin north-eastern finger, wild and largely undeveloped, where donkeys roam half-wild.

For another time of year, Just You's Northern Cyprus Hidden History, also seven nights, covers much the same ground, with St Hilarion and the far end of the Karpas. That includes Dipkarpaz, the long sands of Golden Beach and the monastery of Apostolos Andreas near the tip of the peninsula.

It is not a Christmas of markets and carols. It is a Christmas of empty ruins, harbour cafés in the winter sun and long, quiet evenings, which for some people is exactly the point.