Buyuk Han
Buyuk Han is a 16th-century Ottoman caravanserai in northern Nicosia, restored into an arts and crafts center with galleries, workshops, and a cafe in the central courtyard. Free to enter.
Street in Nicosia
Ledra Street
Ledra Street is the main pedestrian shopping street of southern Nicosia, running from the Eleftheria Square to the Ledra Street crossing point into the north. Free to walk. The crossing is the easiest and most dramatic way to cross from one side of the divided city to the other. Budget travelers walk Ledra Street, show their passport at the checkpoint, and step into northern Nicosia where the architecture, the mosques, and the prices are completely different.
Practical
Before you go
- Address
- Markou Drakou Avenue, 1102 Nicosia
- Good to know
Nearby
More in Nicosia
Other places worth the walk, and what each one costs.
Ledra Street and Green Line Crossing
The main pedestrian shopping street leading to the UN buffer zone crossing between the Greek and Turkish sides of the divided capital. Free to cross with a passport, making Nicosia the only city where you can walk between two countries through a contested border.
Leventis Municipal Museum
A free museum tracing Nicosia's history from 3000 BC through the Byzantine, Lusignan, Venetian, Ottoman, and British periods. Genuinely free admission and an excellent primer on why this small capital has so many cultural layers.
Nicosia Old Town
Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe, split between Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot north by the UN Buffer Zone (Green Line). Free to walk both sides (crossing at Ledra Street checkpoint with passport).
Selimiye Mosque
Originally the 13th-century Gothic Cathedral of St. Sophia, converted to a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1570.
Venetian Walls of Nicosia
A perfectly circular ring of 16th-century defensive walls with eleven heart-shaped bastions, defining the shape of Nicosia's old city. Free to walk along and through, with several bastions converted into cultural spaces and gardens.
Working out what Nicosia costs?
The whole of Nicosia