I’ve just got back from a week spent on a tour of the lesser-known sites of North Cyprus. I wanted to go away for Christmas, as I’ve done for the past few years, and this tour seemed to fit the bill. About ten years ago, Christopher and I spent a Christmas in North Cyprus, hired a car and “did” all of the major sites – crusader castles, Greek and Roman ruined cities, and a medieval abbey. It was very enjoyable, but I didn’t want to repeat that itinerary with a ghost sitting next to me. So a coach-trip with a small group to the unashamed “B-list” sites sounded ideal.
As it turned out, some of the sites in “Secret North Cyprus” were very secret indeed. I had an excellent guide book which covered almost everything, but even that didn’t mention the landfill site which we were taken to view on Christmas Day! One of the men on the tour grumbled over dinner that night that he “could see why they call it Secret North Cyprus. If they told you what it actually involved, nobody would ever go!”. Another chap said that he was already planning a tour of Secret North Kent – he reckoned he could find enough land-fill sites, partially completed infrastructure projects, derelict buildings and non-descript holes in the ground to fill a week!
That was possibly unfair. I found the Bronze Age tombs and some of the Byzantine churches quite interesting. The problem was that I was the only person on the trip who had actually already seen the A-list sites, and without that context the lesser-known sites were rather disappointing. Several of the group had in fact originally booked onto the “Highlights of North Cyprus” tour, only for the operator to decide that it wasn’t viable to run both in parallel over Christmas. So everyone from the two tours was combined onto just the one, the “Secrets” tour. That was an odd decision – if they’d moved everyone onto the main “Highlights” tour, then I would have been the only person who was disappointed. As it was, there were definite rumblings at the back of the coach when we stopped to see “ABC” (Another Bloody Church) or “MBR” (More Bloody Rubble).
I got back very late last night, caught up in the chaos caused by a closed runway at Gatwick. Photos will follow when I’ve caught up on my sleep and had a chance to look through them and select the best.
