Once a glamorous destination that attracted the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Abba, the Cypriot resort of Varosha was abandoned on 14 August 1974 when Turkey invaded. For 50 years, the town has been deserted, but in 2020 it was opened up to tourists. British-Cypriot writer and editor Alex Christofi and his father were some of the first people to be granted admission, while Alex was researching his new book on the history of Cyprus. “I felt quite dissociated as it was difficult to process what I was seeing,” he says. “There was almost no one else there. With the rope barriers, it felt as if I were touring the set of a film about a disaster that had wiped out humanity. There is something deeply melancholy about what remains.”
- Cypria: A Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean (Bloomsbury Continuum, £20) is out now
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