Christian Holiday Villa, Kyrenia — On the Crusaders’ Path to Bellapais
This Christian holiday villa, Kyrenia, sits in Ozankoy, a village whose hillside footpath has carried travellers up to Bellapais Abbey since the days of the Crusades. St Andrew’s Church in Kyrenia, already mentioned above, has served the town’s Anglican community for decades with a thriving weekly congregation, and it’s one of several living threads of Christian worship that run through this corner of Northern Cyprus alongside its much older ruins. The walk itself is a proper pilgrimage in miniature: guests can follow the same stone path used by monks and travellers for the best part of eight centuries, climbing steadily through olive groves and citrus terraces before the abbey’s Gothic arches come into view above the village of Bellapais.
That old crusader path leads up through the hills to Bellapais Abbey, founded around 1198-1205 by King Aimery de Lusignan for a community of Augustinian canons who had fled Jerusalem after the city fell to Saladin in 1187. Consecrated as the Abbey of St Mary of the Mountain and later home to the Premonstratensian order, its name softened over the centuries from the French Abbaye de la Paix — the “Abbey of Peace” — into the Bellapais heard today. Regarded as one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the whole of the Near East, its cloisters and refectory, added under King Hugh IV in the fourteenth century, still stand almost exactly as the canons left them, and the village that grew up around the abbey later gave its name to Lawrence Durrell’s memoir of 1950s Cyprus, Bitter Lemons.
St Hilarion, one of the Crusader castles listed above, has an equally striking origin story. It’s named after a Christian hermit who fled persecution in the Holy Land in the seventh century and is said to have lived and died in a cave on the mountainside; Byzantine monks later built a monastery and church around his tomb, which by the eleventh century had been fortified into the castle whose ruins still cling to the ridge today. The Lusignans later turned it into a royal summer residence, and its fairytale silhouette is often said to have influenced Walt Disney’s design for the castle in Snow White.
Further east, at the very tip of the Karpaz Peninsula among the “Ancient Basilicas” mentioned above, stands the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas, dedicated to St Andrew — the same apostle honoured at Kyrenia’s own Anglican church. Tradition holds that Andrew’s ship was blown off course here on a voyage to the Holy Land, and that a spring of healing water gushed out where he struck the rocks with his staff; the monastery that grew up around it remains a place of pilgrimage today for both of Cyprus’s communities, and was restored in recent years through a bi-communal, UN-backed conservation project. Pilgrims still travel out to the monastery each year around the feast days of 15 August and 30 November, continuing a tradition of devotion to St Andrew that has run alongside the more everyday rhythms of village life in Ozankoy for just as long. From castles to monasteries to a modern Anglican congregation, Christian life on this stretch of coastline has never really stopped.
Jasmine Steps is perfect for:
- Families or small groups of up to seven, in a villa with its own pool, terraces and shady citrus garden
- Guests interested in Cyprus’s Christian and Crusader heritage, from Bellapais Abbey to St Hilarion Castle and the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas
- Anyone wanting to combine beach time with history, from Alagadi’s turtle-nesting beach to the ancient basilicas of the Karpaz
- Clergy, with a 10% discount on the nightly rate
- Guests happy to plan ahead — 2026 is already fully booked, with 2027 now open for bookings
Location
Jasmine Steps, 4 Hoca Sokak, Ozankoy, Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus
How to get there:
Nearest Town:
Local Area
- Crusader CASTLES, Buffavento, Kyrenia and St Hilarion.
- Bellapais Abbey a good walk from the villa via the ancient crusader path from Ozankoy
- Alagadi BEACHES for swimming and where Turtles nest in July
- Escape BEACH, Acapulco Waterpark,
- Karpaz PENINSULA Wild Donkeys and Ancient Basilicas
- Famagusta Old CITY,
- Nicosia (LEFKOSIA)
Facilities
Additional Photos
Click to enlarge
Costs
Energy Provision: Charges included in tariff.
Availability
Available all year round. Fully booked for 2026. Now taking bookings for 2027.
Contact the Owner
If you are interested in making a booking, or you would like further information, please get in touch using the following contact details:
Name: Mrs Elizabeth MacLeod
Address: 9 Taylor Place, London Road, Dorking, RH4 1GS
Phone Number: 0130 632 0591 Mobile: 07811 825550
Email Address: elizabethmavmacleod@gmail.com