Lythrodontas, the olive village of Machairas

South of Nicosia, where the plain starts climbing towards the Machairas forest, Lythrodontas is the last big village before the mountains. It doesn’t feature on lists of top sights and doesn’t try to. Here’s what it offers, from what the Nicosia Tourism Board and the Troodos Development Company publish. For the rest of the area, see Nicosia district.

A large village among olives

At the 2021 census it had 3,124 residents, far more than the mountain hamlets. The Tourism Board calls it the olive-grove village of Machairas and credits it with the services of a small town, a bank, supermarkets, a bakery, cafés, shops and a playground. Its page on rural Nicosia singles out the peaceful squares and the church of Agios Mamas as one of the area’s centuries-old churches.

The name

The board cites the Great Cyprus Encyclopaedia and the Community Council’s records to explain the name. It would come from the first resident, one Erythrodontas, «the red-toothed one», a large local landowner with a dental flaw, whose name became Lythrodontas over the years. It’s local tradition and should be taken as such.

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Into the forest

The best of Lythrodontas lies around it. The Tourism Board mentions the Agios Georgios picnic site near the village, shaded and roomy for families, and the Profitis Ilias site, as well as the Vikles trail, a riding club and bike routes from the village towards Profitis Ilias.

Profitis Ilias is also the end of the trail coming down from Kionia, high in the forest. The Troodos Development Company says the path starts at the Kionia picnic site, crosses the Machairas forest park, a Natura 2000 site with views over the Mesaoria plain, and finishes at Profitis Ilias, about 8 km from Lythrodontas on dirt roads. It’s rated difficult because of the steep final descent.

A farming village with a past

The Union of Cyprus Municipalities records a story from the plain with Lythrodontas at its centre. In 1790 a local agha, Kioroglou, decided to sell one of his chiftliks, the large estates of Ottoman times, to the people who worked it, pleased with their labour and their gifts of resinous pine firewood, and those farmers came from Lythrodontas. It’s a small story, but it says a lot about a village that has always lived off the land, now mainly olives, and that faces both the plain and the forest.

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How I’d fit it in

As one stop on a forest day out. Up to Machairas Monastery and Fikardou in the morning, then down through Lythrodontas for lunch or a picnic at Profitis Ilias. If you’re walking, the Kionia to Profitis Ilias trail is the most rewarding way to arrive.

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