This is your destination guide for Cyprus.
This is your destination guide for Troodos Mountains
📍 Part of CyprusPine forest, wine villages and Byzantine churches painted floor to ceiling, an hour above the beaches.
The reality: You leave the coast in the heat of the afternoon. An hour later the road is in pine forest, the windows are down, and the air smells of resin. At a bend, a stone village hangs off the slope, and beside it a small church with a steep wooden roof like a barn. Inside, every wall is painted — saints, donors, the whole Bible, five hundred years old and more.
The Troodos is the other Cyprus. No resorts, no towers: monasteries, cherry and apple orchards, cold springs by the roadside, and a summit — Mount Olympos — that holds snow in winter.
It isn't one place but a cluster. The forest around Troodos Square and Platres, the river valleys of Kakopetria and Marathasa, the wine villages on the southern slopes. Base yourself in one and drive to the others. Two or three nights is the right amount.
Ten churches in the Troodos are on the UNESCO World Heritage list together, first inscribed in 1985. From outside they look like barns, under steep timber roofs. Inside, they are painted wall to wall.
Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis — "St Nicholas of the Roof", just outside Kakopetria, with paintings from the 11th century onward. One of the oldest of the ten and the easiest to reach.
Panagia Phorviotissa (Asinou) — alone in a valley on the north side of the range, with some of the finest 12th-century paintings on the island. The drive through the forest is part of the visit.
How to visit — hours are short and irregular, and a caretaker often holds the key. Ask in the village café. Photography inside is often not allowed; ask before you lift your phone.
Kykkos Monastery — the richest and best known on the island, founded at the end of the 11th century under the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos. Most of the buildings are later, and the gold-ground decoration in the arcades is modern. Cover shoulders and knees.
Throni — the hilltop a short drive above Kykkos where Archbishop Makarios III, the first president of Cyprus, is buried. Come for the view across the forest as much as the tomb.
Pedoulas — the barn-roofed Archangel Michael church in the village is another of the ten. Pedoulas is also the cherry village of the Marathasa valley; come in June.
The villages are both the base and the reason. Each sits in its own valley, with its own produce and its own weather.
Kakopetria — on the north side of the range, with a protected old quarter of stone and timber houses above a river. Trout restaurants by the water, small hotels in restored houses. The best base for the painted churches.
Platres — the old hill resort on the south side, with big pine-shaded hotels from the colonial era and the end of the Caledonia trail. Busier at weekends, when families drive up from the coast.
Kalopanagiotis — terraces dropping to a river in the Marathasa valley, with the monastery of St John Lambadistis, another of the ten painted churches, across the water.
Omodos — the best-known wine village, on the southern slopes, built around the Timios Stavros (Holy Cross) monastery and a big cobbled square. Day coaches arrive at midday. Stay the night and it empties.
The wine villages — Vasa, Kilani, Lofou and their neighbours: a string of stone villages on the southern slopes where family wineries open for tastings and the vines run right up to the houses.
Troodos Square — not a village but a high crossroads with cafés, stalls and trailheads. Fine for a coffee before a walk, no reason to stay.
Cool air, marked trails, and in winter, snow.
The forestry service maintains a network of signed nature trails across the range, most of them short and shaded. In summer, when the coast is too hot to move, you can walk all morning up here.
Mountain food is what grows and runs here: trout from cold streams, smoked pork, and everything that can be made from a grape.
Trout — farmed in the cold streams around Platres and Kakopetria, grilled whole with lemon. The mountain answer to fresh fish on the coast.
Loukaniko and lountza — village sausage soaked in red wine, and smoked pork loin. Sold by the kilo in village shops.
Soutzoukos — strings of almonds dipped again and again in thickened grape must and hung to dry. They look like brown candles. Chewy, not too sweet, freshest in autumn after the harvest.
Zivania — the clear spirit distilled from grape pomace. Strong. Taken as a small shot, cold, with food.
Commandaria: the sweet dessert wine of the southern slopes, made only from sun-dried Xynisteri and Mavro grapes in 14 villages, with a protected designation of origin. Its name comes from the knights' commandery on the coast below, which once ran the vineyards.
Dry wine: Omodos, Vasa, Kilani and their neighbours make whites from the local Xynisteri and reds from Maratheftiko, both grapes you won't find much beyond the island. Family wineries do tastings, usually for a few euros a glass or a small flat fee.
May, June, September and October are the right months. Warm days, cool nights, open trails, and the harvest starting in late summer.
July and August — high season up here, because the coast is too hot. Cypriot families come up at weekends. Days are warm, nights need a layer. Book weekends ahead.
January to March — snow most years on Olympos, and skiing when there's enough of it. Roads can close after heavy snowfall; check before you drive up.
November to April — some smaller hotels and tavernas close or open only at weekends. Kakopetria and Platres keep the most going.
Rent a car. The Troodos is a web of mountain roads with a village on every ridge, and the churches are scattered between them. Allow longer than the map says — 30 km can take an hour. Cyprus drives on the left.
Bus — a single daily mountain bus runs from Limassol up to Platres and Troodos Square in the morning and back in the afternoon. It works for a day out, not for touring, and it doesn't always keep to time.
From the coast — Limassol is the closest city, around an hour's drive. Nicosia and Paphos take a little longer.
Compare rental cars →Pick a side of the mountain. North for churches and rivers, south for wine and walking.
Kakopetria — for the painted churches and the north side. Stone guesthouses by the river.
Platres — for walking. Old hotels, pine forest, trailheads close by.
Omodos or a wine village — for wine and quiet. Agrotourism rooms in restored village houses.
Pedoulas or Kalopanagiotis — for the Marathasa valley and Kykkos.
The mountains cost less than the coast. A stone village guesthouse runs below a seafront hotel, and lunch gets cheaper the further you are from Troodos Square.
Prices in 2026 euros. Many churches are free to enter; leave a donation.
Go if you want the cooler, older Cyprus — painted churches, pine trails, and wine in the village that grew it — and you're happy to drive for it. Skip if you need the sea every day, or won't take a hairpin road.
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