As you enter the bustle of modern Famagusta from the direction of Salamis, you arrive at a roundabout with a sign to Geçithavaalani. At the roundabout, you take the left exit, west towards the sea, and this road will bring you over a little hump to the northern edge of the walls at the mighty Martinengo Bastion. Squat and muscly rather than tall and towering, these Venetian ramparts are not visible from the modern town until you are nearly upon them. Their height, some 15m, is less than twice their width, often 8m. at the turn of the 20th century, before the industrial development had burgeoned, the imposing outline of the cathedral within the walls could be seen from a great distance as you approached. The soft brown limestone that was quarried to create the moat was then used to construct the walls, an immense task, which must have taken decades. Fifty years is the usual estimate. Leonarda da Vinci is recorded as visiting Cyprus in 1481, and is thought to have advised his fellow countrymen on the design.
A slow drive around the moat takes just ten minutes, and you can get on to the track either at the point where the road enters the walls from the north, or from beside the Canbulat Tower on the south. The circuit can of course also be done on foot, and in the winter months makes a pleasant stroll of about an hour. North of the Land Gate you pass by a derelict café, set down in the moat. Apart from this, the moat is invariably deserted. In summer, when the heat is trapped in the airless gully, all but the most hardy would be best advised to save their energy for the walk within the walls, in itself more than sufficiently sapping. In many places around the moat, especially between the Land Gate and the Canbulat Tower, you can still find old cannon balls and other bits of metalwork left over from the Turkish bombardment. Iron was expensive, and whenever possible, the bravest soldiers would sneak into the moat at night to retrieve the cannon balls for reuse.
As for the ramparts themselves, you can still-sometimes-walk along the top of them with ease between the Canbulat and the Land Gate. In the 1930s the British colonialists, ever amused by games, engineered a nine-hole golf course on top of the ramparts, which the accuracy of direction mote than made up for the comparative shortness of the holes. If you are prepared to be agile, you can also walk a little way from the Land Gate towards the Martinengo Bastion, though you will certainly be stopped soon after the Moratto Bastion as the area becomes military. A large chunk of northern walled Gazima?usa is now a military zone and consequently out of bounds, which is unfortunate since four of the city"s 15 standing churches are still there. You can see all of these churches from the road through the forbidden area, however, which you are allowed to drive or walk along. The Martinengo Bastion also falls within this military area, and as a result, the fine craftsmanship of this, the most powerful of the 15 bastions, can only be viewed from a distance. It is named after a Venetian commander who was sent to Cyprus to relieve the Turkish siege, but who died at sea before arriving. His remains are buried here.
The Land Gate is certainly the most impressive of the bastions, with its arched stone 19th-century bridge spanning the moat. Today it also houses the post office, and beside it is a colossal ramp leading up on to the walls, used for rolling up the cannon. It takes a full 15 minutes to explore its labyrinth of rooms, dungeons, steps, ramps and arches, and its darker recesses have latterly been serving as impromptu latrines, so watch your step. Here and there in the ceiling, chimney holes can be seen, essential to let out the smoke that billowed up every time the cannon were fired. The cannon used by both the Venetians and the Turks during the siege of FAmagusta in 1571 were more powerful than any ever used before in any other country.
It was the sheer power of Gazimagusa"a walls that enable ?t to hold out for ten months against the Ottoman Turks. Nicosia had fallen in 48 days, Kyrenia surrendered without a fight, as did the rest of the island, but Famagusta resisted to a degree that has become famous. The Turks, with an immense force o 100,000 approached along tunnels and trenches so deep that a man on horseback could not be seen, and so extensive that their entire army could disappear inside them. Using mines and artillery, the Turks commenced their f?ring, lobbing more than 150,000 cannon balls into the city. Inside, a force of a little over 5,000 men, Venetians, Cypriots and Albanian mercenaries, waited in terror behind the walls. Using clever tactics, making lost of brief sorties, the Venetian commander managed to trick the Ottomans into thinking that his troops were far more numerous, and the siege lasted an incredible ten months before the city fell, with the besieged, weak plague and famine, reduced to eating cats and dogs. The Turks lost over 50,000 of their men in these ten months, and their rage on final victory was expressed in the most garish form.
Cyprus Holidays Surging through the gates, they overran the entire place, randomly killing men, women and children, desecrating churches and plundering houses. The Venetian commander Bragadino surrendered and was promised safe passage, only for the Turks to renege on the promise and murder him most horrifically. He was flayed alive in public, having first had his nose and ears cut off, then his body was stuffed with straw to be sent to Constantinople dangling from the prow was stuffed with straw to be sent to Constantinople dangling from the prow of a ship. The Turk, when roused, invariably earns his epithet "terrible".