Every country has a village that ends up on the postcards, and in Cyprus it is Lefkara. Draped over the foothills of the Troodos between Limassol and Larnaca, Pano Lefkara is a maze of narrow cobbled lanes, honey-coloured stone houses and terracotta roofs that looks almost too composed to be real. It is real, people live and work here, and the work is the point.
Lefkara's fame rests on two crafts. The first is lefkaritiko, the local embroidered lace: intricate geometric needlework in white, ecru and brown that women here have produced for centuries, sitting in doorways with cushions on their laps. The story goes that Leonardo da Vinci visited in 1481 and bought a lace altar cloth for Milan Cathedral. True or not, the lace itself needs no celebrity endorsement: in 2009 it went onto UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage, and watching it being made, thread by counted thread, explains the prices instantly.
The second craft is silver. Lefkara's silversmiths produce filigree work, delicate twisted-wire jewellery and ornaments, and the lanes are dotted with small workshops where you can watch the soldering happen behind the counter. Between the two, this small village punches absurdly above its weight in handmade things actually worth carrying home.
Doing it right
The coaches arrive mid-morning and leave mid-afternoon, so come early or stay late; the village at 9am or 5pm is a different, better place. Wander without a map, that is what the lanes are for. Visit the church of the Holy Cross with its treasured relic, poke into the lace and silver museum in the old Patsalos house, and drink a coffee in the square watching the lacemakers work. Then walk downhill to Kato Lefkara, the lower village, which most visitors skip: quieter lanes, a frescoed chapel, and some of the best photographs of the day.
Buy something real while you are there. Genuine lefkaritiko is handmade and priced like it; machine-made imports exist, so buy from a workshop where you can see the needle moving. A small piece of lace or filigree is the rare souvenir that is actually the thing the village is famous for, made in the village, by the person selling it. That is not something you can say about a fridge magnet.
Getting there is easy: Lefkara sits just off the Nicosia to Limassol motorway, about 40 minutes from Larnaca, which makes it the natural stop on a drive between the coasts. Pair it with lunch in the square and the mountain villages beyond, and you have one of the simplest great days out on the island.
