St Hilarion Castle

Cyprus's most spectacular ruin: a Crusader castle that spills down a twin-peaked crag in the Kyrenia range, built to guard the old pass road from the coast up to Nicosia. You climb it in three tiers — an outer gatehouse and stables, a middle ward with a royal apartment whose Gothic window frames the sea, and a final scramble to Prince John's Tower on the summit. It's the best preserved of the three mountain strongholds here, above Buffavento and Kantara. On a clear day the view runs from Kyrenia's harbour right across the water to the Turkish coast.