Troodos villages

The Troodos range fills the middle of the island, and its summit, Mount Olympus, is just under two thousand metres — high enough for snow from January to March and a ski lift that surprises everyone the first time they hear about it. The villages sit on its slopes between six hundred and twelve hundred metres, in valleys of pine, poplar and cherry, and they are the reason to come.

Kakopetria, on the north side, is the one with the river: an old quarter of stone and timber houses on a ridge between two streams, restored, with the trout farms a little way up the valley and the painted church of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis — one of ten Byzantine churches in these mountains on the UNESCO list — ten minutes beyond. Omodos, on the south side, is the wine village: a monastery on a cobbled square, cellars under the houses, and tastings in every second doorway. Platres, higher up, is the old British hill station where Nicosia used to go for the summer, and it still has that feel.

The road

The drive is part of it. From Limassol the B8 climbs through the Krasochoria wine villages to Platres in under an hour; from Nicosia the B9 follows the Solea valley to Kakopetria. A loop that takes in both and the summit road between them is a full day with lunch in the middle, and it is a better day in April or November than in August.