A Lefkara tour visits the lace and silver village in the hills of the Larnaca district. Farm stops, a lake walk and day trips from five towns join it. Find more trip ideas on Greece Tours.
Below we compare the tours, the lace and silver crafts, the museum and church, the nearby villages, the days and languages, and the booking details.
What is a Lefkara tour?
A Lefkara tour visits Pano Lefkara and Kato Lefkara, two villages in the Larnaca district of Cyprus. The village sits 650 metres above sea level at the foot of the Troodos Mountains. Visitors come for lace and filigree silver.
Lefkara is known for two crafts. Lefkaritika is a hand-stitched lace, and the silversmiths twist fine wire into filigree jewellery. On a Lefkara tour you walk the lanes where women stitch lace outdoors.
GetYourGuide lists more than 20 tours, and each Lefkara tour names the village as a main stop. They leave from Larnaca, Limassol, Ayia Napa, Protaras and Paphos. Viator adds its own village tours from Limassol and Larnaca.
This page covers the village, its crafts, the stops around it and the booking details. More trips across the island sit on our Cyprus tours page.
Which Lefkara tour formats can you book?
A Lefkara tour is a farm visit, a small-group trip, a lake walk, a Nicosia day or a Christmas outing. Each format adds a different stop to the same lace village.
- Village, olive farm and donkey farm, with local artisans
- Village, donkey farm and Camel Park, from Larnaca and Ayia Napa
- Lefkara, Kato Drys and Choirokoitia in a small group, from Limassol or Larnaca
- A private walk around Pano Lefkara and the Lefkara lake
- Lefkara with Nicosia and Larnaca, from Paphos, Ayia Napa and Protaras
- A private Troodos day with Lefkara and Lofou, from Limassol
- The Lefkara Christmas Village with a coastal stop
Viator lists a Lefkara village tour with lace making, lunch and coffee. It also sells a shore excursion that pairs an olive farm and Lefkara with Limassol.
How far is a Lefkara tour from each coast?
Lefkara lies 43 km from Larnaca and 85 km from Ayia Napa. The drive from Ayia Napa takes about one hour. GetYourGuide lists tours of 5 hours from Larnaca, 5.5 hours from Limassol and 8 to 9.5 hours from Paphos.
Visit Cyprus says the A5, A1 and E105 roads lead to the village. Wikipedia places Pano Lefkara off the main Nicosia to Limassol highway.
A Paphos Lefkara tour runs longest because it adds Nicosia or Larnaca to the village. Ayia Napa and Protaras guests have a similar full-day option that covers Larnaca and Nicosia as well.
SanCy Tours runs a private Lefkara tour of 4 to 4.5 hours. It collects guests from their hotel at about 9:00. Pickup is free in the Ayia Napa, Protaras and Paralimni area and in the Larnaca district.
Our Larnaca tour page covers the city sights, and the Ayia Napa tours page covers the east coast.
Which Lefkara tour adds an olive farm, a donkey farm or a camel park?
The 4-hour village, olive farm and donkey farm tour adds two farm visits to Lefkara. A 7-hour tour from Larnaca and Ayia Napa swaps the olive farm for the Camel Park. It lists optional donkey and camel rides.
SanCy Tours opens its Lefkara tour at a family-run organic olive farm near the village. The host explains how olives are harvested and pressed. The tasting includes olive jam, schnapps, olive-based cosmetics and handmade soaps.
SanCy Tours says the day is private and exclusive to your booking. The guide adapts the pace and the emphasis to photography, traditional crafts or tasting.
The donkey farm sits among olive trees. Guests meet, feed and gently pet the animals. The farm explains how donkey milk goes into skincare, and an on-site café offers a break.
The 7-hour GetYourGuide tour starts from the Larnaca area and the east coast. It lists Lefkara Lace Village, a donkey farm and the Camel Park.
Which Lefkara tour walks to the Lefkara lake?
The private walk takes 6 to 8 hours. It goes through Pano Lefkara village and round the man-made Lefkara lake, all on foot. GetYourGuide states that this Lefkara tour has no paid transport. The guide works in English or Greek.
The lake fills the Lefkara dam, which was built in nineteen seventy-three. Cyprus Mail calls it the seventh largest dam in Cyprus. The dam stands 70 metres high, and its lake holds 13.85 million cubic metres.
A Water Development Department official told the Cyprus News Agency that the water flows in from the Machairas mountains. She described it as water of very good quality.
The dam first supplied the Larnaca and Famagusta areas. Today it irrigates nearby areas and sends drinking water to Nicosia and Larnaca.
Cyprus Mail reported the dam’s third overflow since it was built, and the official said it rarely overflows. A full lake is therefore a rare sight on a Lefkara tour.
Where do Pano Lefkara and Kato Lefkara sit?
Pano Lefkara is the upper village and Kato Lefkara the lower one. Both lie in the Larnaca district, on the southern flank of the Troodos Mountains. The Lefkara municipality also includes the small village of Vavla.
The name comes from the Greek words lefka ori, which mean white mountains. Larnaka Region says the village took its name from the limestone rocks around it.
Visit Cyprus lists the village as a stop on the island’s seventh wine route. That route covers the mountain area between Larnaca and Nicosia.
The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) honoured Pano Lefkara in its rural tourism villages list for twenty twenty-one. The programme backs tourism that protects rural villages, their landscapes, values and local food.
A Lefkara tour therefore treats two villages as one stop. The lace shops, the museum and the main church stand in Pano Lefkara. Kato Lefkara holds a chapel with old frescoes.
What is Lefkaritika lace?
Lefkaritika is the hand-stitched lace that a Lefkara tour comes to see. UNESCO lists it as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. It dates the craft to at least the fourteenth century.
UNESCO names three influences on the designs. They are local craft, the embroidery of Venetian courtiers and ancient Greek and Byzantine geometric patterns.
The women make tablecloths, napkins and show pieces. UNESCO says they sit together and talk in the narrow streets or on covered patios while they work. A Lefkara tour passes that scene in the lanes.
The Intergovernmental Committee approved the listing at its fourth session in Abu Dhabi, the International Journal of Intangible Heritage reports. Visit Cyprus adds that the village has practised the craft since Venetian times.
Seeing the lace at work is the core of a Lefkara tour. Visit Cyprus describes women who sit outside their homes and stitch, with the shops close by.
Which stitches define the lace on a Lefkara tour?
UNESCO says each Lefkara design joins four basic elements and is made by hand. The maker applies cotton thread to linen. Wikipedia adds that the first Lefkara lace used the local white cotton fabric of Cyprus.
- The hemstitch
- Cut work
- Satin stitch fillings
- Needlepoint edgings
Wikipedia names the large embroideries tagiades. The word comes from the Italian Punto Tagliato, a cut design popular in Italy in the 16th century.
Other pattern names include dantela Venis, which means Venice lace, then pittota, gyroulota and liminota. The pattern that marks Lefkara lace is potamoi, the rivers, built from zig-zag triangles called kamares, or arcs.
The International Journal of Intangible Heritage says Lefkaritika grew from an older embroidery called asproploumia. The simple geometric patterns of that older craft survived inside the new one.
Wikipedia says embroiderers add new stitches and motifs as their skill and creativity grow. UNESCO adds that a trained lace-maker designs work that carries her own personality. Each cloth on a Lefkara tour therefore has a maker behind it.
Who makes Lefkara lace, and how do they learn it?
Women make Lefkara lace, and girls learn the craft from their mother or grandmother. UNESCO describes years of informal exposure, then formal instruction in applying cotton thread to linen. Those makers are the people a Lefkara tour meets.
Wikipedia says competition raised the quality of Lefkaritika. Lace was the centrepiece of a dowry. Each woman needed a large collection ready to show on her wedding day.
The embroideresses, called ploumarisses, organised their work from home. The men, called kentitarides, were merchants. They travelled across Europe and Scandinavia to sell the lace.
A local lace school opened in eighteen eighty-nine, and Wikipedia says Pano Lefkara lace regained much of its ancient renown. Lefkara embroidery has been part of educational programmes since the nineteen seventies, according to the International Journal of Intangible Heritage.
The Cyprus National Commission for UNESCO lists safeguarding steps. They include an archive, contests, scholarships, research projects, a lacemaking school and a foundation. Artisans in the lace community still produce skilled work as an economic activity among women, as they have for centuries. Women also make the lace today in Kato Drys, Vavla, Vavatsinia, Ora, Choirokoitia, Skarinou, Dali and Athienou.
What does the Leonardo da Vinci story add to a Lefkara tour?
Local legend says Leonardo da Vinci bought Lefkara lace on a 15th-century visit. He gave it to Milan Cathedral as an altar cloth. No document proves the visit, so treat it as a tradition on any Lefkara tour.
Lefkara.Travel offers two settings for the visit. One is a trip to the Holy Land. The other is a meeting at the court of Queen Caterina Cornaro of Cyprus.
The same site admits that no definitive documentation of the visit exists. It says the legend has become part of the cultural identity of the region.
Visit Cyprus repeats the tale as a legend and dates the visit to fourteen eighty-one. Lefkara.Travel says the story raised the cultural value of the village.
What is Lefkara silver filigree?
Silverwork is the second craft that a Lefkara tour covers, after the lace. Visit Cyprus names the filigree jewellery trifouri. Workers twist fine silver wire into designs that give earrings, pendants and brooches a cobweb effect.
Lefkara.Travel says the municipality once had mines and silver workshops. About five silver workshops carry on the trade today.
The same site says the secrets of traditional silver crafting have lived in the village for over a century. It adds that the pieces blend Eastern and Western elements. A Lefkara tour can therefore show silverwork alongside lace.
The UNESCO listing names the lace only. Wikipedia notes that the silversmiths produce fine filigree work.
What does the Lefkara museum show?
The Local Museum of Traditional Embroidery and Silversmith-work fills the House of Patsalos. The limestone house has rooms from the 19th to the early 20th century. Its upper floor holds costumes, jewellery, silverwork and old Lefkara embroidery.
The ground floor shows village life through a rural dining room and a storeroom with large jars and farm tools. A separate building holds a reconstructed blacksmith’s smithy with original tools and the sound of the smith at work. The smithy adds a third craft to the museum stop on a Lefkara tour.
The Department of Antiquities bought the house in nineteen eighty-three after a donation from Stelios Ioannou. It opened as a museum in August nineteen eighty-eight.
Visit Cyprus lists daily opening from 08.30 to 16.00 between 16 September and 15 April. From 16 April to 15 September the hours are 09.30 to 17.00. The museum closes on certain public holidays.
The same page warns that times and entrance fees change without notice. Check them before a self-guided Lefkara tour.
Where can a Lefkara tour watch or try lace, silver and halloumi making?
Visit Cyprus names the Lefkara Handicraft Centre, the museum and workshops as places to watch lace and silver being made. Lefkara.Travel adds hands-on sessions for lace, silver rings and halloumi that fit around a Lefkara tour.
Larnaka Region says the Handicraft Centre opens for organised groups on request. That suits a group booked on a Lefkara tour.
The lace workshop lasts 2 to 3 hours. A demonstration of stitching techniques comes first, then practice. You take home the piece you stitch. It needs at least 2 participants and no earlier embroidery experience.
The silver ring workshop runs at a local silver workshop in Pano Lefkara. Materials, tools and instruction are included, and you keep the ring. Children join from age 16, or younger if the parent feels ready.
The halloumi farm trip also lasts 2 to 3 hours. It includes a brunch with halloumi, a cheese workshop and a farm walk with the animals. All three sessions run on demand.
What does the Church of the Holy Cross add to a Lefkara tour?
Timios Stavros, the Church of the Holy Cross, joins two buildings. The eastern part dates from the start of the 13th century. A three-aisled basilica replaced the western part in eighteen sixty-seven.
Larnaka Region says the 13th-century part has a domed cross-in-square layout. The apse, the prothesis and the diakonikon survive. The church is a listed monument, so a Lefkara tour passes a protected building here.
Sources link the church to the Monastery of the Holy Cross, called Faneromenos. Monk Gabriel rebuilt both. The Holy Wood stayed in the monastery after its authenticity was confirmed. Queen Alicia funded the monastery’s construction.
The feast day falls on 14 September, and the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross is also celebrated. A Lefkara tour on those dates meets the feast. The church is one stop on the virtual Route of Agia Eleni and the Holy Cross in Cyprus.
In Kato Lefkara, the chapel of Archangelos Michail holds frescoes from the 12th and 15th centuries, says Visit Cyprus. Lefkara.Travel counts 45 chapels and churches in the village.
SanCy Tours asks guests on its Lefkara tour to cover knees and shoulders for church interiors. It adds that a big scarf sometimes helps women.
What do the streets and houses show on a Lefkara tour?
The houses tell two stories. Ottoman-period houses have plain stone façades and rooms around an inner courtyard. Houses from the early 20th century have two storeys, shops on the ground floor, tiled roofs and long balconies.
Wikipedia adds flat rammed-earth roofs on the older houses. The newer ones carry coloured plaster and neoclassical details on their façades.
The Department of Antiquities has restored buildings since nineteen seventy-eight. It lists traditional houses together with the Department of Housing and Urbanism. Pano Lefkara also has a 20th-century mosque with a minaret.
Visit Cyprus names the old fountain, the old olive mill and the Folklore Museum. Larnaka Region adds Oliva Terra, where visitors walk among olive trees and learn about the island’s liquid gold.
Love Ayia Napa’s Lefkara tour page describes tiny shops selling craftware, restaurants and cafes, and walking and cycling routes. Lefkara.Travel names halloumi, souvlaki, sheftalia and moussaka at the village tavernas.
What history lies behind a Lefkara tour?
Pano Lefkara first appears under its present name in the testament of Saint Neophytos, from the Byzantine period. It became a fiefdom in Frankish and Venetian times, and tourism rescued its economy in the nineteen seventies.
Wikipedia says Pano Lefkara was the largest town in Cyprus in the 16th century. Visit Cyprus adds that the village was a holiday resort for nobles in Venetian times.
The same page says Venetian noblewomen taught local women the drawn-and-counted thread embroidery. That is one account of how the lace began.
The census of nineteen forty-six counted 3,003 people. By nineteen sixty the figure had fallen to 2,075, as residents migrated overseas.
Wikipedia credits tourism with ending the decline, because embroidery and silverwork drew visitors to the intact traditional architecture.
What does Kato Drys add to a Lefkara tour?
Kato Drys, which means “lower oak” in Greek, is a small agrotourism village that neighbours Lefkara. It joins the small-group Lefkara tour, and Larnaka Region lists two museums and two churches there.
The museums are the Local Rural Museum and the Bee and Embroidery Museum. The village belongs to the Rural Larnaka Honey Villages and is an EDEN village.
Its crops include grapes, citrus fruit, almonds, olives and carobs. Larnaka Region places the village on a wine route and on the Wine and Gastronomy cycling route.
Panagia Eleousa dates to the 15th century, and Agios Charalambos to the early 19th century. Saint Neophytos the Recluse was born in the village in the Byzantine period.
Wikipedia says Kato Drys appeared on the Cyprus one pound note. Reo Stakis was born there too.
A small-group Lefkara tour from Larnaca lists a local wine tasting with the embroidery and bee museums. Lefkara.Travel calls the footpath from Lefkara to Kato Drys, and on to Sotiris hill, easy.
Our Limassol tour page covers the Limassol departure for the same villages.
What does Fikardou add to a Lefkara tour?
Fikardou is a nearly empty mountain village at 900 metres in the Pitsilia region of Nicosia district. Visit Cyprus says restored 18th-century houses with fine woodwork stand there, and two of them are museums.
A Lefkara tour that includes Fikardou crosses into the Nicosia district. Visit Cyprus gives the road as the E903, then the E904.
The Department of Antiquities owns the House of Katsinioros and the House of Achilleas Dimitris. They show rural items and rural life in past years.
The village was declared an Ancient Monument in nineteen seventy-eight. It won the Europa Nostra award in nineteen eighty-seven, and Wikipedia says it is a candidate for World Heritage status.
A Lefkara tour through Fikardou can end at the village coffee shop, which serves visitors after the walk. The Monastery of Machairas lies less than 15 minutes away, says Visit Cyprus. Wikipedia names the traditional village of Lazanias as another neighbour.
The Machairas icon is called Machairotissa, from the Greek word for knife. Wikipedia says the hermits who found it had to cut their way into its cave through thick plants.
Viator lists a Larnaca departure called Meet the Locals of Lefkara and Machairas Mountains. The title puts the Machairas range next to the lace village.
What does Choirokoitia add to a Lefkara tour?
Choirokoitia is a Neolithic settlement 6 km from the south coast. It stands on a hill partly enclosed by a loop of the Maroni River. UNESCO calls it a major prehistoric site of the eastern Mediterranean.
People lived there from the 7th millennium BC. At its widest the village covered about 3 hectares. The round houses were built from mudbrick and stone with flat roofs, and successive walls protected them.
The dead were buried in pits under the earthen floors. Finds include flint and bone tools, stone vessels and small stone figurines. One figurine is made of clay.
Porphyrios Dikaios, then director of the Department of Antiquities, discovered the site in nineteen thirty-four. A French mission has dug there since nineteen seventy-six, says the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Only part of the site has been dug, so UNESCO calls it a reserve for future study. It records no reconstruction on site. Five houses and a section of the wall were rebuilt off site to help visitors on a Lefkara tour.
The site is open daily. A small-group Lefkara tour from Limassol lets guests explore Choirokoitia on their own.
Which days and languages does a Lefkara tour run in?
Each Lefkara tour has its own weekdays and languages. Paphos departures run on one or two weekdays, and the small-group Kato Drys tours run four days a week. GetYourGuide lists English on every tour on this page.
The GetYourGuide calendars list the Paphos Lefkara tour with Larnaca highlights on Tuesdays and Fridays. The Nicosia and Lefkara guided tour from Paphos runs on Wednesdays, and the Lefkara lace day runs on Tuesdays.
The Ayia Napa, Protaras and Larnaca departure runs on Wednesdays. The Soul of Cyprus tour also runs on Wednesdays. It adds the Church of St Lazarus in Larnaca and a wine tasting. The Paphos, Kourion and Lefkara trip runs on Mondays. Check the calendar first when you plan a Lefkara tour around a fixed day.
The small-group Lefkara tour from Limassol or Larnaca lists Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The olive farm and donkey farm tour runs from Tuesday to Saturday. The private lake walk runs from Monday to Friday.
The private Troodos day from Limassol lists every day of the week. The donkey and camel park tour lists Saturdays.
Greek is offered on the Kato Drys tours and the lake walk. German is offered on the olive farm tour, and Polish on the Soul of Cyprus tour. Our Protaras tour page covers the cross-island trips from the east coast.
Which months suit a Lefkara tour?
A Lefkara tour runs across the year, with two village events to plan around. The Lefkara Festival takes place in August, and the Christmas Village comes in winter. Wikipedia puts the warm season on the Cyprus coast between April and November.
Visit Cyprus says the Lefkara Festival offers music, dance, theatre and handicraft exhibitions.
The Christmas Village tours last 5 hours. They list Lefkara’s Christmas lights and market and a warm drink with a sweet or treat. They add a coastal photo stop in Agios Theodoros and Zygi harbour with its fishing boats.
One of these Christmas tours starts in Limassol, and one starts in Larnaca. Lefkara.Travel lists the Christmas Village as its next main event and announces the programme ahead of time.
Lefkara.Travel has also announced an Easter celebration at the village school square, with free souvla, live music and games.
Wikipedia says snow falls only in the Troodos Mountains. It adds that the centre of Cyprus has more variation in temperature than the coast.
SanCy Tours links the official weather forecast for the coast, the mountains and the inland areas on its tour page.
Can you stay overnight after a Lefkara tour?
Yes. A Lefkara tour can become a stay, and Lefkara.Travel lists village stays: aparthotels, a guesthouse, private apartments and luxury villas. It presents the village as a hotel, with guests in traditional village homes who join the local workshops.
The same site sells transfers to and from Lefkara, so guests can skip the rental car. It also says there is parking nearby for the silver ring workshop.
A night in the village fits the evening walk. Lefkara.Travel runs a guided walk from 15:30, and a reservation is required. The walk covers about 4 km.
The meeting point in Pano Lefkara arrives by message after you book. The guide covers the history of the lace, the traditional architecture, village life and local legends. The route includes a gentle walk to the next village.
How do you book and plan a Lefkara tour?
Choose the departure town first, then the format. GetYourGuide lists pickup and free cancellation on the main tours on this page. Booking closes 3 hours before the start on the Paphos highlights tour. It closes 10 hours before on the farm, lake and small-group tours.
Age bands differ by tour. The Paphos highlights tour sells adult tickets from age 12 and a child band for ages 0 to 11. The Limassol small-group tour sells tickets from age 4, with ages 0 to 3 in a separate band.
The donkey and camel park tour splits ages into 0 to 1, 2 to 12 and 13 and over. Read the age bands before you book a Lefkara tour for a family.
The small-group tours and the olive farm tour carry a small-group label. The lake walk and the Troodos day are private groups. SanCy Tours takes bookings for its private Lefkara tour by email or through an online form.
Lefkara.Travel advises comfortable clothes that you do not mind getting messy for the silver ring workshop. For the halloumi farm trip it advises comfortable clothes and shoes for walking on the farm.
The halloumi workshop can be adapted for light rain. In heavy rain Lefkara.Travel reschedules the visit. The lace workshop suits older children, who can learn simple stitches, and the farm visit lets children meet the goats.
The silver ring workshop runs in English or Greek, and Russian or Romanian on request. The halloumi trip runs in English, with Russian or Romanian on request.
What do travellers ask about a Lefkara tour?
Which towns twin with Pano Lefkara?
Wikipedia lists Rafina in Greece and Lusignan in France. Lusignan is tied to the House of Lusignan, the former ruling house of the Kingdom of Cyprus.
Which village near Lefkara has vineyards?
Lefkara.Travel describes Vavla as a peaceful rural settlement among vineyards and olive groves. It offers a private wine tasting there. Wikipedia lists Vavla as a municipal district of Lefkara.
Can you tour the Lefkara museum online?
Yes. Larnaka Region says the Larnaka Virtual Museums project offers a virtual tour of the museum. The Kato Drys museums are in the same project.
Which Lefkara tour reaches Lofou?
The private Discover Troodos day starts in Limassol and stops in the villages of Lefkara and Lofou. GetYourGuide lists it at 10 hours, with a Cypriot coffee and the history of the area from your guide.
How old is the settlement at Pano Lefkara?
Wikipedia says Neolithic remains found in the village show that people have lived around Pano Lefkara since prehistory.
Where is the sunset viewpoint?
Lefkara.Travel names a viewpoint near the church of Agios Mamas, above Lefkara. It suits sunrise or sunset over the rooftops and hills.