The Karpas Peninsula, the north-eastern finger of Cyprus

The Karpas Peninsula is the long finger the island stretches out to the north-east, and all of it lies in the north of Cyprus. Exploring it means crossing the Green Line by car, taking the insurance and documents listed in crossing to Northern Cyprus, while the general advice is in Northern Cyprus.

Karpasia, the city that named the peninsula

The bicommunal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage explains that the ancient city of Karpasia gave its name to the whole peninsula and lay about 3.5 km north-east of the village of Rizokarpaso (Dipkarpaz). Only a small part has been dug, between 1935 and 1938. The most visible piece is Agios Philon, a 12th-century Byzantine church raised over the nave of a 5th-century cathedral basilica, with a baptistery and marble floors in opus sectile. The sea has swallowed the atrium, which tells you how close to the water the city stood. The committee consolidated it between May 2018 and January 2019.

About 20 km to the south-west, the rural basilica of Agia Triada belonged to that bishopric, and the committee has cleaned and secured its mosaics.

Afendrika and the churches of the area

On the north coast of the peninsula, Afendrika holds the remains of a harbour town that the British archaeologist David George Hogarth, in 1889, and the Cypriot scholar Ieronymos Peristianis, in 1910, identified with the Ourania of ancient writers. Three ruined churches survive, Panagia Afendrika, Asomatos and Agios Georgios, which the committee made safe with emergency works in late 2020.

The church of Archangelos Michael, the main one in the Karpasia area according to the committee, is really two churches joined together. One is Byzantine, with a dome and an apse with features rarely found on Cyprus, and the other was added around 1794.

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Golden Beach and the donkeys

Golden Beach, about 14 km in a straight line from Rizokarpaso, is the beach in every photo of Karpas. English Wikipedia calls it one of the island’s most remote and says the peninsula is a nesting ground for loggerhead and green turtles and home to the Karpas donkey. I have no official source for those details, so I leave them attributed and without figures.

The end of the road

At the tip stands Apostolos Andreas Monastery, and in the hills at the base of the peninsula, Kantara Castle. From the Deryneia crossing to Rizokarpaso it’s about 70 km in a straight line, more by road. Opening times and prices for the sites aren’t published anywhere I can cite, and I’d head back to sleep in Protaras.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Karpas Peninsula and pick one that fits your day.

Where the bus does not go, a car does: compare car hire in Protaras before you arrive rather than at the desk.

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