The Most Beautiful Places in Cyprus
8 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Cyprus are Kourion, Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque and Petra tou Romiou. The list covers 8 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Cyprus has been a crossroads of the eastern Mediterranean for as long as people have sailed it. Mycenaean Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, the crusader Lusignan kings, Venetians and Ottomans each left something behind, and the island's two mountain ranges, the Troodos and the Kyrenia range, gave them sites for monasteries and castles above a coast of white limestone.
Kourion stands on a bluff above the sea, its Greco-Roman theatre and mosaic floors looking out over the water, while in Paphos the Tombs of the Kings are carved deep into the rock, and the House of Dionysus keeps Roman floor mosaics of hunting scenes and myths. Nearby, the sea stack of Petra tou Romiou marks the spot where, in myth, Aphrodite rose from the foam.
The Middle Ages appear in several forms. The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque in Famagusta began as the Gothic cathedral of Saint Nicholas, where Lusignan kings were crowned, and gained a minaret after 1571. Bellapais Abbey keeps its cloister and refectory above Kyrenia, Saint Hilarion Castle clings to crags along the mountain ridge, and in the Troodos the small church of Asinou hides walls covered in Byzantine frescoes beneath a steep wooden roof.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kourion | Archaeological site | |
| 2 | Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque | Mosque | |
| 3 | Petra tou Romiou | Stack | |
| 4 | Tombs of the Kings, Paphos | Necropolis | ✓ |
| 5 | Bellapais Abbey | Abbey | |
| 6 | Asinou - Panagia Phorbiotissa | Church building | ✓ |
| 7 | Saint Hilarion Castle | Castle ruin | |
| 8 | House of Dionysus | Archaeological site |
01 Kourion
Κούριο
Cyprus · 13.4 km from Limassol34.664° N 32.888° E
Image by Walkerssk from Pixabay Kourion stands on a limestone bluff almost 100 metres above Episkopi Bay, on the south coast of Cyprus, looking straight out to sea. Tradition held that it was founded by settlers from Argos in the Peloponnese, and the Kouris valley below it had been settled since the Neolithic.
Did you know? The two gladiators in the House of the Gladiators mosaic are named Margarites and Hellenikos.
02 Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque
Τέμενος Λαλά Μουσταφά Πασά
Cyprus · 0.7 km from Famagusta35.125° N 33.943° E
Catsimpoolas, Nicholas · Public domain The largest medieval building in Famagusta began life as the Latin cathedral of St Nicholas and has been a mosque since 1571, and the double identity is visible at a glance: a French Gothic cathedral front that has served Muslim worship for more than four centuries.
Did you know? Lala Mustafa Pasha, whose name it now bears, was a Bosnian-born Ottoman commander who later rose to grand vizier under Sultan Murad III.
03 Petra tou Romiou
Πέτρα του Ρωμιού
Cyprus · 21.4 km from Paphos34.664° N 32.627° E
Image by dimitrisvetsikas1969 from Pixabay A pale limestone stack rises out of the surf a short way off a pebble beach on the south-west coast of Cyprus, with a scatter of smaller rocks around it and the swell breaking white against all of them. It is a modest landform by size, but few rocks in the Mediterranean carry this much story.
Did you know? Digenis, meaning of two bloods, was the son of a Byzantine general's daughter and a Syrian emir, and he is the hero of an epic from the 11th–12th century.
04 Tombs of the Kings, Paphos
Τάφοι των Βασιλέων
Cyprus · 2.8 km from Paphos34.776° N 32.405° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by dimitrisvetsikas1969 from Pixabay The Tombs of the Kings is a large necropolis on the coast just north of Paphos harbour, where the dead of Hellenistic and Roman Paphos were buried in chambers cut out of the solid rock. Despite the name, no kings lie here.
Did you know? A tomb complex found in 1983 in the northern part of the site, unique in Cyprus, is reached by a stepped passage about 20 metres long and was richly stuccoed.
05 Bellapais Abbey
Αββαείο Μπελαπάις
Cyprus · 2.9 km from Kyrenia35.307° N 33.355° E
Chris06 · CC BY-SA 4.0 At about 220 metres above the sea, on a hillside above Kyrenia, the Gothic arches of Bellapais Abbey frame a long view down to the town and the Mediterranean. The abbey was raised and enlarged under the Lusignans, the crusader dynasty that then ruled Cyprus.
Did you know? The Armenian prince and historian Hayton of Corycus took vows with the Premonstratensian canons at Bellapais in 1305.
06 Asinou - Panagia Phorbiotissa
Παναγία της Ασίνου
Cyprus35.046° N 32.972° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Zairon · CC BY-SA 4.0 Panagia tis Asinou, also called Panagia Phorbiotissa, is a small church in the northern foothills of the Troodos mountains. It stands alone beside a stream a few kilometres south of the village of Nikitari.
Did you know? The narthex was repainted in 1332/33, and these murals show Frankish influence from the Lusignan kings who then ruled Cyprus.
07 Saint Hilarion Castle
Cyprus · 5 km from Kyrenia35.312° N 33.281° E
Dickelbers · CC BY-SA 3.0 Saint Hilarion crowns a double-peaked crag in the Kyrenia Mountains of northern Cyprus, above the pass that carries the road from Kyrenia down to Nicosia.
Did you know? In 1228 the regent John of Ibelin moved his family into the castle for safety, fearing hostile moves by Emperor Frederick II.
08 House of Dionysus
Cyprus · 1.5 km from Paphos34.758° N 32.406° E
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany · CC BY-SA 2.0 The House of Dionysus is a large Roman townhouse in ancient Nea Paphos whose floors are covered with some of the finest mosaics in the eastern Mediterranean.
Did you know? The Ikarios scene captures the moment just before tragedy: in the myth, the drunken shepherds believed they had been poisoned and killed Ikarios.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Cyprus?
- On our list, Kourion ranks first, followed by Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque and Petra tou Romiou.
- Where was Aphrodite born according to Greek myth?
- According to tradition, Aphrodite emerged from the sea at Petra tou Romiou, a sea stack on the southwest coast of Cyprus near Paphos.
- Are kings buried in the Tombs of the Kings in Paphos?
- No. The rock-cut tombs, dating from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, held local aristocrats and officials; the name refers to their grandeur rather than to royal burials.
- What are the Painted Churches of the Troodos?
- They are a group of Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches and monasteries in the Troodos Mountains, inscribed together by UNESCO for their wall paintings. Asinou is among the best known.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Cyprus?
- In our collection, the places in Cyprus are most often archaeological sites (3), sea stacks (1), churches (1) and abbeys (1).
- How many places are on this list in Cyprus?
- The list covers 8 places.