The painted churches of the Troodos mountains look plain from outside. Squat stone boxes with steep timber roofs, built that way to shed the snow, they hide inside some of the finest Byzantine frescoes in the Mediterranean, and nine of them were listed by UNESCO in 1985, with a tenth added later. The Church of Timios Stavros, the Holy Cross, at Pelendri, is one of the group, with frescoes from the fourteenth century that show scenes of the life of Christ, in the dark blues and ochres of the period, and an interior lit by only a little daylight so that the figures seem to glow.
The villagers were not wealthy, but they were devout, and in the long centuries of Frankish and Venetian rule, when Cyprus was a Latin kingdom with a Greek Orthodox population, the churches were a way of keeping their faith and art alive. Local donors appear in some of the paintings, kneeling at the feet of saints, a touch that makes the past feel intimate. The churches are usually kept locked, and a caretaker or a neighbour will fetch the key if you ask, and a small donation is welcome.
Pelendri is a hill village at about a thousand metres, on the south side of the range, with stone houses, a café and a beautiful old square, and Kyperounta is a larger village nearby, set among vineyards. This is the Commandaria country, where a sweet dessert wine has been made since the Middle Ages, said to be the oldest named wine still in production. Fuel is easier in Limassol on the coast, but mountain villages often have a pump, and Platres, a few kilometres off, has services.
The riding is a pleasure. The roads climb from the coast through pine, cedar and golden oak, with hairpins, smooth asphalt and sudden views over the island, and traffic is light, apart from weekend visitors. Fog and cold are possible at height, and snow falls in winter, so spring and autumn are best. In April the scent of herbs fills the air, and in October the grape harvest is under way. Ask for a coffee under the plane tree in the square and listen to the village.