Nicosia's Archbishop's Palace, two buildings and four museums

When people talk about Nicosia’s Archbishop’s Palace they really mean two buildings, a cathedral and several museums around one square. It’s the place in the city most loaded with recent history. Below I take each part in turn and suggest a route, drawing on the municipality’s own entries.

Two palaces, two eras

The old palace is a two-storey 18th-century building that the municipality describes as a religious, national and political monument, closely bound up with modern Cypriot history. Beside it is the new one, also two storeys but in stone and neo-Byzantine style, built by Archbishop Makarios III between 1956 and 1960. It holds the archbishopric’s offices, the archbishop’s residence, the library and the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia. The white statue of Makarios in the photo stands in front.

The balcony of 1959

One scene explains the weight of this place. The municipality recounts that when Makarios came back from three years of exile on 1 March 1959, around 200,000 people, nearly half the island’s population, lined the road from the airport to the archbishopric. He spoke to the crowd from its balcony. Months later he was elected president and Nicosia became capital of the Republic.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Nicosia before prices climb.

The Folk Art Museum, in the old palace

When the archbishop moved to the new palace in 1961, the old one was handed to the Society of Cypriot Studies, which had founded the Folk Art Museum in 1937. The building is older than it looks, 15th-century Gothic with later additions, on the site of a 13th-century Benedictine monastery. It has an arch decorated with a 16th-century Annunciation fresco uncovered in 1950.

The museum catalogues more than 5,000 items, from weaving, pottery, embroidery and lace to costumes, metalwork, woodcarving, basketry and naïve painting. My favourite is the door from the church of St Mamas with a little carved owl that inspired the poet Seferis. It’s open 9:30 to 16:00 from Tuesday to Friday and on Saturday mornings until one, and costs €2, according to the Tourism Board’s listing. Upstairs is the room of Archbishop Kyprianos, who was taken from this building to be hanged in 1821.

The 1955-1959 struggle and the Gymnasium

On the same square is the National Struggle Museum, about the fight against British rule, open on weekdays from 8:00 until 14:30. British visitors will find it tells that period from the other side, which is exactly why it’s worth an hour. Opposite stands the Pancyprian Gymnasium, the oldest secondary school in Cyprus still running, founded by Kyprianos himself in 1812, with its museums open Monday to Saturday.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Archbishop's Palace and choose by the reviews.

How I’d do it

A whole morning. I’d start at the Byzantine Museum, go on to St John’s Cathedral, right next to the palace, and finish at the Folk Art Museum or the National Struggle Museum, depending on what interests me more. A few minutes away is the House of Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios, the dragoman’s mansion, and everything else in Nicosia is a short walk away.

A car frees you from timetables: search car hire in Nicosia on DiscoverCars and compare companies.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Nicosia before prices climb.