Vasa Koilaniou

Pelendri is a working Troodos village of about a thousand people on the southern slopes, known to art historians for one extraordinary building: the church of Timios Stavros, built in the fourteenth century when Cyprus was under Lusignan (Crusader) rule. The frescoes inside are unusually rich — a full cycle of late-Byzantine work overlaid in places by crusader-era Western European influence, including donor portraits in Lusignan court dress. It's a UNESCO-listed Painted Church and one of the few places to see this fusion of styles up close. Beyond the church, Pelendri is an unfussy mountain village with vineyards, a small main square, and a couple of coffee shops where you can ask for the church key. The surrounding terrain is good walking country, and the village makes a quiet, low-tourist alternative base for exploring the wider Limassol Troodos.

Agros climbs the Pitsilia mountainside like an open theatre, the houses stacked in tiers at 1,100 metres with high peaks closing the back of the stage. Two things put it on the map: roses and meat. The damascena rose fields on the slopes around the village have been distilled into rose-water, rose-oil, and rose-flavoured loukoumi since the 1940s — the May rose festival is when the harvest peaks and the air smells of nothing else. The local charcuterie tradition is equally celebrated: hiromeri (smoked ham cured in red wine), lountza (similarly cured pork tenderloin), and loukaniko sausages all come out of family workshops you can visit and taste. Hotel Rodon, the big village landmark, was one of the original Cypriot mountain hotels. Pitsilia walking trails fan out from the village in every direction, and the temperature drop after Limassol makes it a natural summer escape.

Foini is a working village at 920 metres on the south-western slopes of Troodos, surrounded by pine forest and famous on the island for three things: pottery, loukoumi, and the Chantara waterfalls. The traditional pottery — earthenware jars (pitharia) and household vessels — has been made here for centuries; you can visit a working potter's workshop in the village. The loukoumi (Cyprus delight, the Cypriot version of Turkish delight, scented with rose or bergamot) is the village's other long-standing craft, and workshops will open up if you ask. The small Pilavakeion folk-art museum and the Holy Cross village church are both worth a stop, and the Chantara waterfalls — a short drive from the village — are particularly dramatic after winter rains. The annual Foini Traditional Festival on the first Sunday of August fills the square with stalls of loukoumi, pottery, and local fruit, plus folkloric music sets.

Koilani is the quiet, traditional core of the Krasochoria — a village of 820 metres of altitude, folk-architecture houses with tiled roofs and arched windows, and viticulture so deeply embedded that old earthenware jars still sit in courtyards and old wine presses are still working. Two excellent small museums document the tradition: a viticulture museum and an ecclesiastical museum, set in restored village buildings. The chapel of Agia Mavri, just outside the village, sits under one of the biggest plane trees on the island and holds important medieval murals — worth the short walk. The main village church of Monogenis is older still. Beyond wine, Koilani is known for arkatena (the dense crunchy rusks made with chickpea yeast) and for glitzista, the sweet pastries that appear at every village feast. The annual Grape Feast in early October is the moment to be here, but any quiet afternoon spent walking the lanes will do.