Nicosia

The story of Nicosia

Nicosia, Lefkosia in Greek, Lefkoşa in Turkish, descends from the ancient city-kingdom of Ledra; the medieval Frankish 'Nicosie' gave Europe its name for it. The city has been Cyprus's capital for a thousand years, ruled in turn by Byzantines, Frankish Lusignans, Venice, the Ottomans, and Britain.

The Venetians left the signature: in the 1560s they compressed the medieval town inside a perfect eleven-pointed star of walls, a Renaissance ideal city diagram made real, still intact. It failed within a decade against the Ottomans, but the star remains Nicosia's shape and symbol.

Curiosities: Nicosia is the world's last divided capital, the UN-patrolled Green Line has split it since 1974 (its barrels-and-barbed-wire crossing at Ledra Street reopened to pedestrians in 2008, so you can now walk from one side to the other with a passport); derelict houses inside the buffer zone keep their 1974 furniture; and the Büyük Han, a 1572 Ottoman inn, is the island's loveliest courtyard café.