Bellapais Abbey

Bellapais Abbey is one of the finest Gothic monastic ruins in the eastern Mediterranean, perched on a rocky spur of the Kyrenia Mountains in northern Cyprus, about 6 km southeast of Kyrenia/Girne. Founded around 1201 by Premonstratensian canons — whose white habits earned it the nickname 'White Abbey' — its name is a corruption of the French 'Abbaye de la Paix', Abbey of Peace. Under the Lusignan kings of Cyprus in the 13th and 14th centuries, the complex was expanded into an ambitious Gothic ensemble; the arcaded cloister and the roofless refectory with its intact rose window survive as testament to that era. The abbey stands in de facto Northern Cyprus territory and is open daily 09:00–19:00. From the cloister, the view stretches across the coastal plain to the sea.