Painted Churches of Troödos – Byzantine frescoes under timber roofs

From the outside, many of them could pass for mountain barns. Scattered through the valleys of the Troödos, ten small churches and monasteries shelter under steep-pitched wooden roofs laid with flat hooked tiles – a form particular to these mountains – and from the road there is little to suggest what is inside. Behind the heavy wooden doors, the walls are painted with saints, apostles and scenes from the Bible. Together they make up one of the largest groups of churches and monasteries of the former Byzantine Empire, in UNESCO's words, and an overview of Byzantine and post-Byzantine painting in Cyprus across some 500 years, from the 11th to the 16th century. Nine were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985 and the tenth, at Palaichori, in 2001. They range from tiny rural chapels to monasteries, spread across three areas of the range – Solea, Marathasa and Pitsilia – so seeing them is a matter of mountain roads and village squares.

The story

Cyprus was annexed by the Byzantine Empire in 965, and over the following five centuries the Troödos filled with churches. Many carry dated inscriptions, rare in the medieval eastern Mediterranean, which UNESCO notes makes them valuable for dating Byzantine painting. Panagia Asinou near Nikitari was built in 1099 with a donation from Magistros Nikephoros Ischyrios, who later became a monk; its murals reflect the art of Constantinople. At Panagia tou Araka, near Lagoudera, the painter Theodoros Apsevdis signed frescoes in the late Comnenian style in 1192. UNESCO calls the paintings of Nikitari and Lagoudera outstanding testimony to Byzantine civilisation in that period.

The later churches tell of a changing island. At Pedoulas, a local painter named Minas built and decorated the church of Archangelos Michael in 1474, in the post-Byzantine style that developed before Venetian rule. At Palaichori, the 16th-century paintings belong to the Cretan school. The churches are still owned by the Church of Cyprus; the Department of Antiquities supervises them and pays for their conservation.

What you see

Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis, St Nicholas of the Roof, near Kakopetria, takes its name from the timber roof built to protect it from the weather, and its walls are painted from the 11th century to the 17th. At Agios Ioannis Lampadistis, three churches stand under one enormous timber roof; its Latin chapel holds what the tourist board calls the most complete series of Italo-Byzantine paintings in Cyprus, and the old wooden templon is carved with a heraldic Lusignan lion and a Byzantine eagle. At Archangelos Michael in Pedoulas the walls are painted on two levels – eleven scenes of the Festival Cycle above, saints below – with the Crucifixion and the Ascension in the pediments and a wooden templon of the same period still intact.

How to visit

You need a car, and the tourist board suggests days out area by area. The Deputy Ministry of Culture has set common hours for all ten. From 16 April to 15 September they open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 17:30, and on Sundays from 11:00 to 16:30; from 16 September to 15 April, Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 16:30 and Sundays from 11:00 to 16:30. They are closed on Mondays.

Entrance is free at Asinou, Stegis, Araka, Pedoulas and Lampadistis, the five we checked against the tourist board's listings; Asinou, Stegis and Pedoulas are listed as wheelchair accessible, and Lampadistis has an entrance ramp. Stegis is five kilometres from Kakopetria, and Asinou three kilometres from Nikitari.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.