Coast/Beach:

10-minute drive to coast and good choice of beaches within 30 minutes

Travel:

Half-hour village taxi to Ercan airport and 75-minute taxi drive to Larnaca airport

Distances:

Ten-minute drive to historic Kyrenia with its Crusader castle and attractive harbour full of cruise boats and lined with restaurants and cafes

Further Details:

Bellapais — made famous by Lawrence Durell's Bitter Lemons — is arguably the most beautiful and historic village in all Cyprus, and has as its heart the 13th-century abbey of the same name, floodlit at night, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. There are walks in the wooded mountains above the village, and the sea and the historic Crusader port of Kyrenia lie below, just ten minutes by car. There are six good restaurants in the village, and in early summer and autumn there are international classical music festivals in the Abbey itself.

Northern Cyprus is the most beautiful part of the island — much of it still undeveloped — with its coastal region lying below a range of mountains and with the historic Crusader port of Kyrenia as its centrepiece, and with three great mountain-top castles as the jewels in its crown. The sea is crystal clear, the beaches uncrowded — and in parts virtually empty even in high summer.. The food is excellent, the wine surprisingly good and inexpensive, and the local people could not be nicer. For golfers there is now a first-class 18-hole course half-an-hour from the house.