Buffavento Castle is around 30 minutes drive from Kyrenia, situated high up in the mountains behind the very prominent Five-Finger mountains seen in the picture above.
This castle is not in such a good condition as the Hilarion Castle, but the location is awesome. The castle is perched right on top of a ledge giving unobstructed views on both sides and i have heard people say that, on a clear day, you can see right across the sea to the north. You have to drive from Kyrenia towards the five-finger mountains to the east. During winter and spring, the drive up the mountains is rewarded by amazing scenery on either side of the road. The road is a proper highway until the five-finger mountain (behind it, actually). After that, a clearly marked sign would point you to a mountain road upto the castle. The road is good enough for an ordinary car.
The drive on this road is for a few kilometres with excellent photo-ops of the south side. It can get quite windy here because of which the chill factor is extreme in winter. Few years back, when i had been there for the first time, i tried to walk the distance (since there was no sign then mentioning the few kms distance) and the cold was unbearable. This time, we thought that this road would lead right to the castle. But this was not to be so. At the end of the few kms, we stopped at a parking and were searching for the castle. One of us suddenly looked up and the there amongst the clouds, was the castle. It was on top of a near vertical mountain. We found a small path climbing up the mountain. We hadn’t planned on this trek for the day, so we skipped it. I heard from a friend of mine that this 1.5 hr almost-vertical climb is very interesting and the views from the top are excellent. Have to plan for this sometime!
Enjoy North Cyprus!
