Far away from Cyprus's notorious party spots, a new agrotourism project is saving a dying village
The road into the Troodos mountains snakes left and right, hugging the hillsides as the flora turns from spartan scrubland to pine forest. At the road's highest point, its most curvaceous bend, a huge sign rears up, declaring, in English: "Drive On The Left!" It's hard to imagine having driven the 45 miles or so up from the arid plains and the beaches of Limassol without noticing.
For this Brit, unused to driving even at home, motoring on the left is one of many pleasant surprises about Cyprus, a place I've never dared venture before, fearing a riot of Ayia Napia-style party hotspots or a desert of "Linda Barker-styled" villa developments for retirees.
Cyprus, surprisingly, is full of surprises. There's the climate, for one – hot all year save for the sun's brief sabbatical in January and February. The island is about 150 miles long and the roads easy. The wine? Highly palatable, local and cheap. The food, Greek in essence, with shared Turkish traits, perhaps a remnant of a shared past though not, seemingly, a future. There's history, aeons of it, usually involving invasions.
Perhaps most surprising are the Troodos, the green peaks capping Cyprus's blanched features, a place where Cypriots go to escape the stifling summer heat or, as I'm told wistfully by a waiter, to experience snow and a burning log fire in winter. Yes, snow. You can ski in Cyprus in winter, at 1,952m Mount Olympus.
It's definitely cooler up here. On the drive up, we measured the climb not in metres, but in the fall in centigrade: 31C, 29C, 27C ... down to 23C! Heaven! It's also cooler in aesthetic terms. In the hills you can slip on rose-tinted glasses and experience calmer, older ways, as detailed in Lawrence Durrell's 1950s classic The Bitter Lemons of Cyprus.
Kalopanayiotis feels much like Durrell's literary idyll, Bellapais, a hill village near Kyrenia, now in the Turkish-controlled north. Here, at 867m, the old terracotta-roofed houses, with verandas and pergolas that appear like lush vine-covered lawns from above, seem bolted to the mountainside, many on stilts, clinging to the cliffs lest the sweltering valleys below claim them.
Kalopanayiotis is famed for its trout, its Venetian stone bridge, its mineral springs, and its 11th-century chapel, church and monastery of Saint John Lampadistis, with awe-inspiring frescos. I'm not one for religion, but these Unesco-listed frescos, both Byzantine and Renaissance, running wall to wall, ceiling to floor, are jaw-dropping. (As, too, are the black-cloaked, grey-bearded, sun-blasted priests who roam around doing Orthodoxy things.)
I'm here for neither frescos nor fish, but for Casale Panayiotis, a stylish new 29-room boutique retreat in the heart of the old village. It's an adventure in agrotourism, a concept I've never quite understood, until now. Agrotourism sounds like either a punch-up in Ayia Napa or, even worse, the drudgery of helping with the harvest on a Moravian smallholding and sleeping in the stable with chickens and donkeys.
Actually, we are staying in an old stable, albeit an elegantly refurbished wood-beamed, stone-walled one, complete with king-size bed, snazzy bathroom, incredible crochet curtains and intricate thatched rush-cane ceilings. The sprawling patio is dotted with huge urns brimming with rosemary and olive trees, and flanked by chaise longues, ideal for sipping a glass of dry white from the local Shoufas winery while staring up at the mountains above.
It's hard to pigeonhole Casale Panayiotis. It's part luxury spa, part elegant hotel but mainly part village, its cleaned-up old stone cottages blending in within the old quarter – well, not so much a quarter as a cluster of 50 or so buildings nestled below the more densely populated, newer settlement above. Some villagers still live in the old manor, but everyone is free to walk through the narrow cobbled streets – just like in any other Cypriot village, although few others feel so crisp, refurbished.
And not every other village has an excellent hillside restaurant like the Byzantino, perched over the Setrachos river, serving locally sourced produce. There's also a museum/conference centre in the restored townhouse of Greek Orthodox martyr bishop Lavrentios; the Lavrentino spa, hewn from an aristocrat's home; and superb guest rooms refurbished from village homes (and stables). A pool and larger spa opens next year.
Casale Panayiotis is the brainchild of civil engineering magnate John Papadouris, born and bred in the village but settled in Dubai, via north London. Papadouris wanted to put something back into the dying village and has tapped both private and EU funds to do it. Now the village mayor, almost a lord of the manor, he has come up with what seems a winning template for regenerating hill villages.
"There are 450 homes in the village. In the 1950s about 1,500 people lived here, but I'd say only 150 of the homes are now occupied full-time. The average age was above 70, the young had fled to the towns and coast, and the school had gone. It was dying. I didn't want it to die."
In the 1930s Kalopanayiotis was a spa town: visitors came to take the waters at the thermal spring and visit the monastery. There are signs of revival, thanks to Papadouris, who is reinstating vineyards and building a water bottling plant across the valley. Work in tourism is bringing back young families. Some villagers have been spurred to revitalise their homes, many setting up guesthouses and letting rooms, with Casale Panayiotis helping out. There's the Hotel Kastalia and the Atratsa Mountain Apartments, to name but two.
A taverna has also opened, in the old cinema. Every village needs a bar as much as a church, says Papadouris – and Kalopanayiotis's taverna was buzzing when we were there, serving grilled meats and traditional mezes. From here, after a few glasses of crisp white wine and digestif of the fiery local Zivania, it's but a short merry hop home, up through the "new" village, past old coffee shops, delis selling soutzoukos (long soft sausage-like sweets made from grape juice) and nougat, down to the "old" village, past stone houses, pergolas and still-used outdoor dome ovens, to Casale Panayiotis, and our luxury stable.
The food is impressive, too, in the Casale's Byzantino restaurant where local dishes such as lamb's ankle (€17) vie with freshly caught local trout and keftedes (meatballs with bulgar and yoghurt, €12). To sample it all, order the meze, at €25 for two (but ample for three, possibly even four and the pet dog), with standout dishes including halloumi with fig marmalade, koupepia (minced pork and rice in vine leaves), locally made feta, the best moussaka I've ever had and the glide-off-the-bone home-baked lamb, kleftiko.
Food is sourced locally, much from Papadouris's sprawling orchard in the valley where visitors can, in season, pick walnuts, oranges or the succulent seeded grapes known as verigo– short for the colonial English appreciation "very good", jokes Papadouris.
Larger groups can book a ride in the restored wooden Bedford coach, the old village bus, for a splendid trip down memory lane, literally: at the wheel is the taverna landlord, the only man in the village apparently skilled in double-declutching down hairpin bends. On the left!
• The trip was provided by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (visitcyprus.org.cy) and Casale Panayiotis (+357 2295 2444, casalepanayiotis.com, rooms from €83 a night B&B). Cyprus Airways (cyprusair.com) flies from Heathrow to Larnaca from £96 return. More information from kalopanayiotis.com