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ATTRACTIONS OF NORTH CYPRUS Nicosia Area (West to East)No.9 MEVLEVI TEKKE MUSEUM This 17th Century building was used as the Tekke, or monastery. Of the Whirling Dervishes, an order founded by the mystic poet Jelal-ed-din Rumi Mevlana in the 13th Century, until 1920, when Ataturk banned the Monastic orders. After this period the dances of the dervishes were allowed only as a cultural eventIn Cyprus the tradition lived on until its last sheikh died in 1954. No.10 KYRENIA GATE This was one of the main gateways of the city called 'Porta Del Proveditore' after its architect Proveditore Francesco Barbaro. A Latin inscription inside the gate gives its date 1562. The Arabic inscription above the gate reads "O Mohammed, give these tidings to the faithful: victory from God, and triumph is near. O opener of doors, open for us the best of all doors". No. 11 BUYUK HAN The first Ottoman governor of Cyprus, Muaffer Pasa, built Buyuk Han, or the Great Inn, in 1572. Its architecture is similar to numerous Hans encountered in Anatolia, a courtyard surrounded with rooms arranged on two floors. The lower rooms were used as shops, storage rooms and offices. The rooms on the upper floors served as lodges and each is fitted with a fireplace, which has an octagonal chimney. In the middle of the courtyard there is a domed octagonal mosque resting on eight columns with a fountain of ablutions under it. No 12 THE VENETIAN COLUMN The grey granite column which stands in the middle of the major square of Nicosiais thought to have been brought from the ruins of the Salamis by the Venetians. Originally it bore a lion on its top. Its base is decorated with Venetian coats of arms. The Ottoman Turks overturned it after the conquest in 1570. In 1915 the British reerected it this time with a copper globe at its top. No. 14 DERVISH PAHA KONAK
This is a 19th Century mansion of two storeys, which was recently restored and opened to the public as a folklore museum. Dervish Pasha, who once owned the mansion or konak was the publisher of the first Turkish newspaper
'Zaman' ('Time') in Cyprus.
St. Sophia Cathedral is regarded as one of the most important gothic works of architecture in Cyprus. Its foundation stone was laid in 1208 on the site of an earlier Byzantine building, which was probably named Hagia Sophia, or the Divine
Wistoffi. It was finished in 1326. The Lusignan Kings were crowned in this cathedral. It was plundered by the Genoese in 1373, and by the Mamelukes in 1426, and suffered several earthquakes. |