Foinikas

Foinikas is an uninhabited village in the province of Paphos in Cyprus and it is situated 25 kilometers away from the homonymous city, 66 kilometers northwest of Limassol and 130 kilometers southwest of Nicosia.

Built right on the northwest banks of the Asprokremos (or Xeropotamos) dam, Phoenix was the headquarters of the Knights Templar due to its strategic position, as it was built on a flat area between the river and a vertical slope. When the Knights Templar acquired the island of Cyprus from the King of England, Richard the Lionheart, and settled in the Castle of Nicosia, they chose this area as another base to control the villages of the provinces of Paphos and Limassol.

The village was built entirely with local stone and with a peculiar architectural motif that cannot be found anywhere else on the island, since here all the houses were identical and in the case of a hostile raid they turned into an impenetrable fortresses. On the ground floor there was the only entrance of the houses that led to an inner courtyard and was used as a stable for the horses, while an internal stone staircase led to the first floor where the rooms, the kitchen, the living room and the oven were located. Only here were there external windows and these were very small. Foinikas continued to be inhabited during the following centuries, under the rule of the Frankish, the Venetian, the Ottoman, and the colonial English, until the 1960s. After the liberation of Cyprus and its independence and its subsequent Turkish invasion in 1974, the last Turkish Cypriot inhabitants abandoned the settlement and moved to the Turkish occupied areas of northern Cyprus.

Now, the “sunken village” is standing ruined on the banks of the dam, with the landscape of abandonment disrupted only by the people that visit the area in order to see the unique spectacle of old buildings half-submerged in the water, when the rainfall is strong and the dam overflows. Foinikas has become an ideal spot for photography, especially in the spring, due to the impressive landscape, the palette of colors and flowers that the visitor faces, as well as the reflections of the dilapidated buildings in the water.

The abandoned village is very close to Anarita (3 km), Holetria and Nata (5 km), while opposite to the dam is Nikoklia. Access to Foinikas is ​​difficult, as the routes that pass through here follow a dirt road. The one way (from Nata) passes through the Asprokremos bed, so it is impossible to get here in the winter months when the water is very high, while the other (from Anarita) follows a rough and downhill course from a dirt road that meets with a small stream surrounded by reeds.