ARAB DISTRICT

Surrounding the Arabahmet Mosque, this pleasant district (Arabahmet Mahallesi) occupies a large part of the western part of Nicosia-North's old town. Mainly populated by Armenians during the Ottoman period, it is now half-empty, but pleasant to wander around. The narrow streets, seldom visited by tourists, lead to beautiful bourgeois houses with honey-colored or whitewashed stonework. The shutters and large corbelled balconies are green, brown or mauve. Behind the doors are glimpses of small courtyards, gardens, cats or chickens, while colorful flowering plants embellish the facades. Some of the homes left derelict after the clashes of 1963 have been renovated with UN support. In addition to the mosque that gives the district its name, you can visit Derviş Paşa's house, the Armenian church of Notre-Dame-de-Tyre and the Arabahmet House of Culture and Arts. In the western part, the Venetian fortifications framed by the Roccas and Mula bastions dominate the buffer zone: a Turkish Cypriot soccer pitch at the foot of the ramparts, an informal parking lot, barbed wire, vegetation, a white UN watchtower, the former Ledra Palace hotel used as a billet for peacekeepers, war ruins and the Ledra Palace crossing point. Each of the two bastions has a café with a terrace where you can enjoy unobstructed views of the divided city.