Pano Lefkara

Lefkara's lace, lefkaritika, has been stitched here since at least the fourteenth century, built from four set moves: the hemstitch, cut work, satin-stitch fillings and needlepoint edgings. The geometric patterns carry the mark of the Venetian families who ruled Cyprus from 1489, reworked into something local over the generations. UNESCO added lefkaritika to its Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009. The village's other trade is silver. Its smiths are known for fine filigree, twisting silver wire into openwork the way the women twist thread, and the Lefkara Museum of Traditional Embroidery and Silversmithing keeps both crafts under one roof. Both read against the village itself: cobbled limestone streets, bare stone facades from the Ottoman years, and houses turned inward around a courtyard. Then there is the story the village tells about itself. By tradition, Leonardo da Vinci came through in 1481 and bought a lace cloth for the main altar of Milan Cathedral. It is legend rather than documented fact, but it has followed the lace for five centuries, and Lefkara has had little reason to correct it.