"North Cyprus in late October " a Kyrenia District Travel Page by MikeBird

In October 2007, my family: wife and 3 teenage kids , spent an enjoyable and relaxing week in North Cyprus - or to give it's full title The Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. We were very fortunate to have found, via the internet, an old house which is located about 10kms from Girne ( previously known as Kyrenia) in the small town of Lapta originally known as Lapithos.

The house, part of an Old Monastery, is about 5 minutes drive from the coast though the beaches are a little further and some of them are now snapped up by hotels or Beach Clubs.

The main photo is a view taken from the hills overlooking Lapta town to the north. An exciting feature of the house is that it was mentioned in Lawrence Durrell's famous book 'Bitter Lemons of Cyprus'.
We really enjoyed the mature garden with its jasmine flavoured smells as we sat of an evening listening to the sounds of the neighbourhood and watching the bats flit around the patio.

There is a huge amount of development taking place around Girne. New properties are springing up along the coastal strip and we couldn't help feel that very soon this part of Northern Cyprus will become just another piece of real estate losing its original identity and character but appealing to second home owners looking for a comfortable, sunny and relatively cheap lifestyle.

You can see from the photo the scale of the new development. This photo was taken from St Hilarion Castle looking towards Girne.