Kyrenia Castle

Lonely Planet review

The wide, protective Kyrenia Castle is a powerful backdrop to the dainty harbour. It is one of the town's only sights, and inside is an interesting mishmash of various bits of the area's history. The castle was built by the Byzantines and, while it might have staved off the Ottoman invasion of 1570, the Venetians quickly surrendered it when they saw how quickly Lefkosia had been overrun.

This large rectangular structure is guarded by four fortified bastions, one at each corner. You enter the castle via a stone bridge over a moat, which leads you to the small 12th-century Byzantine Chapel of St George, to the left of the entrance. The chapel, with its Corinthian columns, stood outside the walls until the Venetians incorporated it into the structure. Parts of its mosaics have survived.

Moving to the northeast bastion, a Venetian tower displays eerie reconstructions of various military scenes. Dressed up in military armour and uniforms, the reconstructions (or rather, costumed mannequins) represent different aspects of life in the castle's history, covering vast periods of time, from the Byzantines to the British. A particularly gruesome reconstruction is in the north room, an infamous torture chamber. This is where King Peter I's mistress, Joanna L'Aleman, was thrown to be tortured by the king's jealous wife, Queen Eleanor, while Joanna was eight months pregnant with the king's child. The 'pregnant' mannequin gawping up at you from the dungeon below is sure to give you the creeps.

Up along the ramparts, you can move between the four towers via routes marked by handrails. You are advised to stick to the marked routes since some sections are rather precipitous. The views of the harbour are fantastic from here. If you want to take good photographs of the town, climb up here in the early morning for guaranteed good light.

The highlight of the castle is the chamber containing the Kyrenia Shipwreck, the oldest shipwreck ever recovered from the waters around Cyprus. This wooden-hulled cargo boat sank just off Kyrenia around 300 BC and was discovered in 1967 by a local diver. Based on its freight, which consisted mainly of almonds, grain, wine and millstones from the Greek island of Kos, the crew most likely traded along the coast of Anatolia as far as the islands of the Dodecanese in Greece.

Antechambers display samples of the boat's cargo and photographs detailing the delicate salvage operation that was carried out to prevent the disintegration of the Aleppo pine from which the boat was constructed. The boat is displayed in a dim chamber where you can examine the structure and layout of this remarkable marine archaeological find in considerable detail. A good reconstruction of this ship sits in Agia Napa's Thalassa Municipal Museum of the Sea.