Episkopi Cantonment is the administrative seat of the Sovereign Base Areas — headquarters of British Forces Cyprus and the seat of the Administrator. It sits on a plateau above the sea west of Limassol and looks, disconcertingly, like a 1960s English garden suburb transplanted into a Mediterranean landscape: bungalows, clipped verges, a cricket pavilion, road names in English.
Below it lies Happy Valley, the garrison's great green bowl of sports pitches, where cricket has been played since the 1950s beneath cliffs that would not look out of place in a Greek tragedy. Above it, on the headland, stands Kourion — the ancient city, its theatre restored and still used for summer performances of Greek drama and Shakespeare, its Roman villas floored in some of the finest mosaics on Cyprus.
Kourion is administered by the Republic's Department of Antiquities and is fully open to the public in the ordinary way; you buy a ticket and walk in. It is one of the great archaeological sites of the eastern Mediterranean and, sitting where it does, one of the most photogenic — the theatre's stone seats framing a straight drop to blue water.
Nearby, in the Republic, the Kolossi Castle keep — a Crusader stronghold of the Knights of St John and the historic heart of Commandaria wine production — is a ten-minute drive and worth pairing with a visit.
Akrotiri and Dhekelia have no inscribed UNESCO World Heritage Sites. That absence should not be mistaken for a lack of archaeological, cultural or natural importance: Kourion and the Akrotiri wetlands merit attention in their own right. UNESCO inscription is one specific form of recognition; the conservation designations described below serve their own purposes and have their own boundaries. For access, conservation and visitor rules, consult the SBA Administration and, for archaeological sites under its care, the Republic of Cyprus’s Department of Antiquities.
The protection that does exist is environmental, and it is substantial:
· Ramsar wetland of international importance — designated in 2003, including the salt lake, saltmarshes and the hydrologically connected Fassouri marshes. · Akrotiri Special Area of Conservation — designated under the SBA’s Protection and Management of Nature and Wildlife Ordinance by the December 2015 order. · Special Protection Areas — the Akrotiri wetlands and cliffs have this protection under SBA legislation. · Important Bird Area — the peninsula supports more than 300 recorded bird species. Each designation has its own boundaries and legal or conservation purpose; the labels are not interchangeable.
Cyprus's three World Heritage properties are all within easy reach, and two of them are close enough to visit from the base areas in a morning:
· Paphos (inscribed 1980) — the Roman mosaics, Tombs of the Kings and the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaipafos, about an hour west of Episkopi. · Painted Churches in the Troodos Region (1985, extended 2001) — ten Byzantine churches and monasteries in the mountains directly north. · Choirokoitia (1998) — a Neolithic settlement of round stone houses from the 7th millennium BC, on the motorway between Limassol and Larnaca and therefore between the two base areas.
And in the SBAs themselves, the archaeology stands on its own terms without a plaque: Kourion, whose theatre, basilica and mosaic-floored villas would carry a nomination anywhere else in Europe.
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