Five days in Cyprus, from Fig Tree Bay to Paphos

There is no MICHELIN Guide hotel in Protaras or Ayia Napa, which is a good reason to turn a beach holiday into a journey. This route starts on the golden sand of Fig Tree Bay, follows the south coast to Larnaca, climbs into the lace-making village of Lefkara, crosses to the walled old town of Nicosia, winds through the Troodos Mountains to the painted Byzantine churches and comes down to the sea again at Paphos, where the mosaics and rock-cut tombs of the ancient capital wait at the end. It takes five days and roughly 380 kilometres of driving, none of it rushed, and every night is spent in a hotel recognised by the MICHELIN Guide: Hotel Indigo Larnaca, selected in the Guide, and three houses with One MICHELIN Key – The Agora Hotel, Amyth of Nicosia and Amara. Along the way are four entries on UNESCO's lists, from a Neolithic village to a living lace-making tradition, and more than one beach worth a detour.

Day oneFig Tree Bay, Cape Greco and the road to Larnaca

Begin early on the beach that gives Protaras its fame. Fig Tree Bay, a Blue Flag beach, has fine golden sand and very clear water, and takes its name, according to Visit Cyprus, from a single fig tree that has stood there since the 17th century. Lifeguards are on duty from April to October.

Seven kilometres away by road, south-east of Protaras and east of Ayia Napa, the Cape Greco National Forest Park covers 385 hectares of protected coast: limestone sea cliffs, trails lined with Calabrian pine and Phoenician juniper, sea caves and the small whitewashed church of Agioi Anargyroi, with steps down to a cave by the water. Some 400 plant species grow here, 14 of them endemic. After a last swim, drive west for about an hour to Larnaca, check in at Hotel Indigo and spend the evening on the palm-lined Finikoudes promenade.

Day twoSaint Lazarus, Choirokoitia and the lace village of Lefkara

Walk to the Church of Agios Lazaros before the day warms up. Visit Cyprus calls it one of the most remarkable examples of Byzantine architecture on the island: built by the emperor Leo VI in the 9th century over the saint's tomb, restored in the 17th, with a gold-covered baroque iconostasis. Entry is free. Between November and March, add a detour to the Salt Lake, where thousands of flamingos spend the winter.

Then drive half an hour west to Choirokoitia, a Neolithic settlement listed by UNESCO in 1998 and, in its words, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the eastern Mediterranean. Five of its round dwellings have been rebuilt beside the site with the original methods and materials, furnished with replicas of the objects found inside. From there it is 12 kilometres up to Lefkara, 650 metres above the sea.

Lefkara laces, or Lefkaritika, are on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, inscribed in 2009: a hand craft going back at least to the 14th century and still taught by mothers and grandmothers. Watch it being made at the Lefkara Handicraft Centre, look into the 12th- and 15th-century frescoes of Archangelos Michail in Kato Lefkara, then settle in at The Agora Hotel, the village's former market, for dinner at NOVÉL.

Day threeNicosia inside the Venetian walls

It is under an hour to Nicosia. Leave the car and walk: the old city is still ringed by the walls the Venetians built in the 16th century, with eleven heart-shaped bastions and a moat 80 metres wide. Enter through the Famagusta Gate, the largest of the three gates, designed by Giulio Savorgnano in 1567 and now the Nicosia Municipal Multicultural Centre.

Give the afternoon to the Cyprus Museum, the island's largest archaeological museum, which runs from the Neolithic Age to the Early Byzantine period and holds the 1st-century BC statue of Aphrodite of Soloi; entry is free, and it is closed on Mondays. Check in at Amyth of Nicosia, a ten-room 19th-century villa a few steps from the Famagusta Gate, and eat in its courtyard under the olive trees.

Day fourThe painted churches of the Troodos

Today is the longest drive and the most rewarding. UNESCO lists ten Painted Churches in the Troodos Region, mostly small rural churches and monasteries covered in murals that trace some 500 years of Byzantine and post-Byzantine painting, and singles out the paintings at Asinou and Lagoudera as outstanding evidence of the Comnenian period. Start at Panagia Phorviotissa, the church at Asinou near Nikitari, about an hour from Nicosia.

Continue into the Solea Valley to Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis, St Nicholas of the Roof, 5 kilometres from Kakopetria. Visit Cyprus describes an 11th-century church named for the pitched timber roof built to protect it from the weather, covered entirely in wall paintings from the 11th to the 17th century. It is closed on Mondays. Have lunch in Kakopetria, whose old quarter of stone lanes and wooden balconies is protected, then drive down through the mountains to Limassol and Amara, in time for sunset at the Rooftop Bar.

Day fivePaphos and the Tombs of the Kings

The drive west to Paphos takes a little over an hour. The Archaeological Park of Kato Paphos has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1980; the city was moved here at the end of the 4th century BC and served as the capital of Cyprus from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. Its heart is the floor mosaics of four Roman villas, the Houses of Dionysos, Theseus, Aion and Orpheus, discovered in 1962 when a farmer ploughing his field turned one up. The House of Dionysos alone has 556 square metres of mosaic.

End the journey three kilometres north at the Tombs of the Kings, monumental underground tombs cut from solid rock in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Despite the name, Visit Cyprus notes, it was high officials and aristocrats who were buried here, some in tombs built like houses around a peristyle atrium and decorated with Doric pillars. Paphos has its own airport, so the journey home is short. Anyone staying on will find several Paphos hotels selected in the MICHELIN Guide, among them Almyra and Annabelle on Poseidonos Avenue.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.