Nikitari

Katydata is a small village in the upper Solea Valley, 56 kilometres from Nicosia, where the Karkotis and Setrahos rivers meet — the name comes from the Greek 'kato' (under) and 'ydor' (water), describing the village's setting between the two streams. The village itself is unassuming (population under 150, a single nineteenth-century church of Agios Ioannis Theologos), but it sits next to one of the most historically significant industrial sites in Cyprus: the Skouriotissa copper mine, the largest mine on the island, worked since antiquity and still active today, producing copper cathodes. A small mining museum nearby tells the story. Combine the visit with a drive through the surrounding Solea villages and the Painted Churches cluster, or use Katydata as the quietest possible base for that exploration.

Korakou sits in the Solea Valley north of the Skouriotissa copper mine — a stone-built village of around 500 people that has held onto its old water-mills, olive presses, and the quiet rhythm of a Troodos farming community. The forest land around is wild pine, and the lower slopes are planted in fruit trees, olives, and aromatic herbs (locals still distil essential oils from the wild crop). Three water-mills and two olive-mills survive in the village, with their original architecture intact and visible from the road. The village churches are unusually rich in icons and silver — the eighteenth-century Panagia Eleoussa, the 1697 church of the Apostle Loucas (the date is carved above the north entry), and the seventeenth-century Agios Mamas are all worth opening. References to the village go back to the Frankish period under variant spellings ('Coracu', 'Coraco') and the place has worn many names without losing its character.