A day in Lefkara: lace, silver, and lunch in the square

Pano Lefkara is a village that does only a few things, and does them with stubborn excellence. Lefkaritika lace, filigree silver, loukoumi sweets, and a long lunch in a shaded square: that is the day, and it has not changed much in three hundred years.

The village climbs the white limestone slopes of the Larnaca foothills, a forty-five-minute drive south-west of the city. The name comes from the Greek leukos oros, "white mountain", and you understand it the moment you turn off the motorway and the pale stone of the houses comes into view above the olive groves.

Lace in the doorways

Pano Lefkara is the village whose embroidery is on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, inscribed in 2009. Lefkaritika is a precise white-on-white cut-and-drawn linen, the patterns descended from the Venetian era. You will see it being made the way it has always been: women sitting in their doorways with a small frame in their lap, working in conversation with whoever passes.

Legend has it that Leonardo da Vinci visited Lefkara in 1481 and bought an altar cloth for the cathedral of Milan. Whether or not the trip happened, the technique he would have seen has survived continuously since the late fifteenth century, which is the more remarkable fact.

The Museum of Traditional Embroidery and Silversmithing in the upper village is the best place to see older pieces and to understand the difference between a real lefkaritiko and a printed imitation. Buy from a workshop, not a souvenir stall, and expect the price to reflect the hours involved.

Silver hammered by hand

The other living craft in the village is filigree silver. The smiths work in small family workshops, mostly off the main square, and the work is done by hand: drawing the wire, soldering the lacework, polishing the finished piece. The patterns are often direct translations of the lace motifs, with the silver standing in for the white linen. Earrings, brooches, small trays, religious icons. Again, buy from the maker if you can.

Lunch in the square

By midday the cobbled square at the top of the village is the place to be. A handful of family tavernas line the edges and the meze culture is taken seriously here: hot and cold dishes brought one after another for as long as you keep saying yes. Halloumi straight off the grill, sheftalia, ofto kleftiko if it is on the day's list. Order a jug of village wine to go with it and budget two hours.

Leave room for loukoumi, the rosewater sweet that Lefkara makes alongside the better-known Geroskipou tradition. It is sold by the box from a few small confectioners on the way back to the car.

A short walk to Kato Lefkara

Kato Lefkara, the lower hamlet, sits about a kilometre below the main village on the slope. The walk down takes twenty minutes, and the way back up takes thirty. Kato Lefkara is a quieter village of just over a hundred people, with two small churches and almost nothing in the way of shops, which is exactly why it is worth the walk. Plan to be back in the upper square in time for coffee.

A second village on the same drive

If you have the energy, Kato Drys is fifteen minutes away by car, hidden in narrow valleys where the slopes are still planted in almonds, olives, and carobs. The name means "lower oak". It is smaller than even Kato Lefkara, the kind of place where you can park anywhere and the only sound on a Tuesday afternoon is your own footsteps.

When to go

The village is at its best on weekdays in the shoulder seasons: April to early June, and mid-September to November. Summer Sundays bring tour buses; weekday mornings before ten are blissfully empty. The square is well shaded so lunch is comfortable even in July, but the climb up the lanes is hard work in the midday heat.

Getting there

From Larnaca, the drive is around forty-five minutes via the A5 and the Lefkara exit. From Limassol, allow an hour on the same motorway. From Nicosia, just over an hour via the A1. Parking is at the lower entrance to the village; the centre is pedestrian only from there. Bring small notes for the workshops, most of which do not take cards, and a head covering for the Church of Timios Stavros.

If Lefkara is the village where Cyprus does crafts well, our day in Omodos covers the equivalent for wine: another off-the-mainline village that rewards the slow visit.