Old Town

Top choice in Kyrenia (Girne)


Wrapping around the Old Harbour, the diminutive Old Town is an atmospheric area for a wander. Its winding alleyways hold a jumble of abandoned stone buildings slowly slipping into disrepair, mixed with newer concrete additions.

Modest remnants of Kyrenia's long history are speckled throughout the lanes. Two of the major monuments are the Ottoman-era Ağa Cafer Pașa Mosque and the dilapidated remains of 16th-century Chysopolitissa Church. There are also ancient Greco-Roman tombs on the road leading to Archangelos Michael Church.

During the Lusignan era, the town was protected by fortifications which, over the years, were dismantled and reused for other building works. The Round Tower on Ziya Rızkı Caddesi next to one of the entrance ways into the neighbourhood is one of the few still-standing pieces of wall. At the eastern edge of the Old Town, leading down to the castle, is bijoux St Andrew's Anglican Church, built in 1913 and still serving Kyrenia's Christian foreign resident community today.