Nicosia: Last Divided City, Tour combining South & North

Join me on a journey through time in the last divided Capital City of Lefkosia, strolling the back streets of the old city feels like dropping into an earlier era.
On our walk, we will explore the city's South Greek and North Turkish sides and follow the infamous “Green line” that cuts through the center, separating the city into southern and northern sections. This division has kept the two major communities of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots apart for more than five decades. Our journey begins at the Ledra Palace Hotel, known in its era as the largest and most majestic hotel in the capital.
You will witness life having evolved along either side of this schism, something once impossible to do until recent agreements between the two sides to open border crossings.
We will explore Ledra Street located at the heart of the aforementioned walled city now once again rekindled to one of the most popular pedestrian commercial streets accented by abandoned buildings reclaimed by nature through decades of lost time scarred by bullet holes, military outposts, and barricades.
Stepping across Ledra Street from bustling Greek Nicosia to the Turkish side sharply highlights the city's division.
As we continue our path we shall stop at the Arab Ahmet Mosque followed by the Buyuk Khan, Cyprus’ best preserve example of Ottoman caravanserai architecture.
We will take a small break, sit down with a Turkish coffee as the call to prayer echoes, and soak up the merging of old and new that permeates this side of the walled city.
Our walk continues in the district of Arab Ahmet, this area was one of the original 12 quarters as they existed shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Nicosia in 1570, where Armenian Cypriots had been concentrated since the Ottoman conquest, the entire area is imbued with a heady sense of yesteryear and is one of Nicosia's most interesting neighborhoods to stroll through. We shall visit the Armenian church, first thought to have been established in the 13th century as the Abbey of Our Lady of Tyre and was handed over to the island’s Armenian community in the 15th century before crossing back to the South side.