At 1,200 metres on the southern slopes of the Troodos, Pano Platres is where Cyprus goes to cool down. In the 1930s and 40s it was the island's grand summer resort, a hill station where colonial officials, Egyptian royalty and wealthy families from Cairo and Beirut spent whole seasons escaping the heat. King Farouk summered here. The Nobel laureate George Seferis wrote, in a poem every Greek schoolchild meets, that "the nightingales won't let you sleep in Platres." The grand era faded, but the village never lost the habit of hospitality, and on an August evening when the coast is at 38 degrees, Platres at 24 still feels like a magic trick.
Two waterfalls before lunch
Platres is the best walking base in the mountains because the two most famous waterfalls in Cyprus are both on its doorstep. The Caledonia Falls, a 12 metre drop in a green gorge, sits at the end of one of the island's loveliest trails, a shady path criss-crossing the Kryos stream all the way up towards Troodos square. Millomeris Falls, taller at about 15 metres, hides below the village and can be reached by a short steep path or an easy drive. Do Caledonia as the morning walk and Millomeris as the afternoon reward, and you have had a properly good day before dinner.
Beyond the falls, the whole Troodos trail network unrolls from here: the Artemis trail circling the summit of Mount Olympus, the Persephone trail to a viewpoint over half the island, and quiet forest roads to the monastery of Trooditissa. In winter, when the snow arrives, the ski lifts on Olympus are twenty minutes up the road, a sentence about Cyprus that still surprises people.
Sweets, trout and slow evenings
Come down hungry. Platres does mountain food: grilled trout from the local farms, souvla done properly, and the village's famous handmade fruit preserves and berry products from its small shops. The cafes along the main street have been refuelling walkers for a hundred years and have the routine down cold.
Stay a night if you can. When the day-trippers drain away, the village drops into a deep mountain quiet broken only by running water and, in early summer, the nightingales. Seferis was right about them. You will not mind.
Getting there takes about 45 minutes from Limassol up a good mountain road, and the climb itself is part of the day, vineyards giving way to pine forest as the air cools through the open window. Book ahead for August weekends, when half the island has the same idea.
