Qualla: Buffavento Castle

Buffavento Castle: Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Franco Pecchio, CC BY 2.0. Defier of the Winds. That is what the Italians named it, and after roughly six hundred steps of climbing through the Kyrenia range you understand the name without anyone having to translate it. At 960 meters above the Cypriot sea, on a peak so steep the north, east, and west faces simply fall away into nothing, Buffavento Castle does not so much sit on its mountain as cling to it. The wind moves through the broken vaults all day and most of the night. Whoever built this place was not building for comfort. They were building for what could be seen from up here, and for who could not get up here to take it.

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Image: Franco Pecchio | CC BY 2.0

Buffavento Castle: A Question Without an Answer

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gerhard Haubold, CC BY-SA 3.0. Almost everything about Buffavento's beginning is contested. The most plausible date is sometime in the Byzantine period, but the historians offer a buffet of guesses: built in 965 after the Arabs were expelled from Cyprus, raised by the rebel Rhapsomates in 1091, ordered by the ...

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Image: Gerhard Haubold | CC BY-SA 3.0

Buffavento Castle: The Mountain Spine

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ira Goldstein, CC BY-SA 3.0. Buffavento was never alone. It stood as the middle link in a three-castle chain along the Kyrenia Mountains: Saint Hilarion to the west, Kantara to the east, and Buffavento between them, watching the mountain pass that climbed from Kythrea up to the north coast. The three togethe...

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Image: Ira Goldstein | CC BY-SA 3.0

Buffavento Castle: Richard, Then a Long List of Owners

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AncientNicosia, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1191, on his way to the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart conquered Cyprus from its self-styled emperor Isaac Komnenos. Saint Hilarion fell. Kantara fell. Buffavento, which had not seen any real fighting, surrendered after the others gave way. Richard then sold the entire i...

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Image: AncientNicosia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Buffavento Castle: A Prison in the Clouds

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Josef Moser, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Lusignan period turned Buffavento into a place to disappear people. In 1308, a knight named Anseau of Brie was held inside these walls when news reached him that his order, the Knights Templar, had been put on trial across Christendom. Imagine the climb to deliver that news. ...

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Image: Josef Moser | CC BY-SA 4.0

Buffavento Castle: Stones Without Decoration

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Etel Winery, CC BY-SA 4.0. What is left now is a working castle stripped to its essentials. The upper ward faced the sea. The lower ward looked out over the plain. Both were built of dressed limestone hauled from the coast and rough stones broken from the mountain itself. There are no carvings, no flourish...

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Image: Etel Winery | CC BY-SA 4.0