Sweet treats on the island of bitter lemons

Northern Cyprus is often left off the well-worn tourist trail, which is a good reason for going there Turkey’s Mediterranean shore extends beyond the beaches of southern Anatolia. It also includes 480 miles of coastline of sunny Cyprus, the most eastern and third largest island in the ancient sea. Biffed about by the vissisitudes of history (Anthony gave it to Cleopatra as a token of his love, without so much as a by-your-leave from the locals), the island’s last bust-up was in 1983, when the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared. Though you can still fly direct from Stanstead or Manchester, since then the TRNC has had to contend with a degree of isolation from the international community, its ports blocked, its aspirations clipped, with a result that it has been left remarkably unspoilt. For a place to get back to nature while contemplating, over a healthy meal, the history of Europe and the passions of man, it is hard to beat. Rocky coves and long sandy beaches are less crowded here than in most of the Mediterranean, while rural villages and ancient harbours, family-owned restaurants and citrus groves recall the world of Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons. The story of his three-year stay, from 1953, in the mountainside village of Bellapais near Kyrenia, the book tells how he bought a house with the help of a “terrestrial rogue”, Sabri Tahir, in a tale that far outstrips Peter Mayle’s Provence. A plaque marks the house today. continue