Galata and its painted churches

Galata lives a little in the shadow of its neighbour Kakopetria, which is a shame, because it has more painted churches than you’d expect in a village its size. To go round it I’ve combined UNESCO, the census and the village notes handed out by the Troodos Development Company.

A village of river and orchards

Galata sits at 620 metres in the Solea valley, crossed by the Klarios river, which waters its orchards. The company describes stone-walled houses, tiled roofs, wooden doors and the wooden balconies typical of the area, and singles out its fruit, apples, peaches, apricots, cherries, damsons and grapes. In 2021 it had 571 residents.

The UNESCO church

The most famous is Panagia Podithou, north of the village, a former monastery church built in 1502, with a gilded wooden iconostasis and Italo-Byzantine paintings. It belongs to the UNESCO property that gathers the painted churches of Troodos, and getting in costs nothing.

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The other churches

What makes Galata unusual is that Podithou isn’t alone. The company mentions the chapel of the Virgin, with frescoes from 1514, the church of Agios Sozomenos, from 1513, in the centre of the village, and the chapels of Agios Georgios and Agia Paraskevi. Its Solea churches route also includes the church of the Archangels. The main church, by contrast, is modern, Panagia Odigitria, from 1930, which keeps sacred vessels, vestments and a Gospel from 1745.

An honest note, UNESCO only inscribed Podithou. The others aren’t World Heritage, but for anyone who enjoys early 16th-century painting they make a perfect complement.

Rural life

To see how people lived in the valley, Galata’s folk art museum displays tools used by farmers, silk breeders, shoemakers and other trades. The Kyrillos watermill is still working and demonstrates the traditional process of grinding wheat, and a trail leads to the old Rodou mill, wrapped in greenery.

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Kaliana, close by

In the same valley, Kaliana keeps, at 600 metres, its church of Saints Joachim and Anna, from the 12th century, with few frescoes but a striking one of the Forty Martyrs from that period and a 13th-century portable icon of Panagia Kalionitissa, according to the company. At the village entrance stands Kaliana Station, an inn from 1900 restored as a cultural centre, with a two-storey arcaded front that the company praises as fine folk architecture.

Making a morning of it

Galata sits right beside Kakopetria, so the logical plan is to sleep there and give Galata a morning. I’d start at Podithou, carry on to the churches in the centre and the museum, and finish at the mill. In the afternoon you can head up to Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis, a few kilometres away. If you also take in Panagia Asinou, you’ll have seen the valley’s three UNESCO churches in one day.

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