Lofou

The grapes, the olives, the honey: all of it still comes off the same hills you can see from the square.

Lofou curls its restored stone houses in a tight amphitheatre around the Church of the Annunciation, high in the Limassol wine hills above the vineyards it once lived on.

Stone houses with terracotta roofs and wooden balconies step up the slope in rings, each one set to look out over the roof below. The lanes between them are stone-paved and stepped, barely wide enough for a loaded mule, which is roughly the width the village was built for.

The wine village that came back

The name is the Greek for a hill, lofos, and the village was built to it. Lofou is one of the Krasochoria, the wine villages on the marly hills behind Limassol, and it lived off what those hills gave: grapes on the terraces below, olives pressed in the village, and a share in the sweet sun-dried koumandaria the region is known for. What that trade left is still sold at the door, the olives and honey and arkatena, the twice-baked rusks leavened with chickpea yeast. For most of the last century the village was emptying, and the 2001 census counted just ten residents. What kept the stone shells standing was restoration rather than rebuilding, house by house, so the old plan of the village survived the change of use. It is a hill village that was brought back rather than left to fall down.

Good to know

Lofou is about 30 minutes north of Limassol on the F819, at around 780 m among the wine villages.

The core is effectively car-free; leave the car at the edge and walk the stepped stone lanes.

The old olive mill is now a small folk museum, and the Church of the Annunciation holds the centre of the village.

Most of the stone houses have been restored as agrotourism guesthouses and tavernas, so it works as an overnight base.

Asked about Lofou

Is there much to do in Lofou?

Not in the box-ticking sense; it is a restored stone village for a slow lunch, a walk through the lanes, and the view over the vineyards.

Can you stay in Lofou?

Yes, several of the old stone houses run as agrotourism guesthouses, and it makes a quiet base for the Limassol wine hills.

Lofou

Lofou

The wine village that came back

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