![Lavender festival Freedom Group Lovely Lavender field in North Cyprus](https://cdn.freedom-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/024small-1024x601.jpg)
Purple haze! Lavender lures visitors
The temperature drops as you loop the mountains, pine forest bends knocking a degree or two off the car thermometer. It’s a voyage of discovery on an island renowned perhaps more for its beaches than its mountain tops. Here, homes have been chiseled into the rocks. Hardly anyone has a garden – but the views from the ubiquitous balconies are breathtaking, the island spread below like a Google map.
Lavender Festival
![008small Freedom Group Nice table with lavenders](https://cdn.freedom-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/008small-676x1024.jpg)
The villages of the Troodos offer a welcome escape from the blistering North Cyprus summer. Last weekend, we headed to Platres for their Lavender Festival. We drove through Aplic, one of the more recently opened crossing points, in the town of Lefke. It’s Sunday, so even these rural roads are comparatively busy but well-made and well-signposted, the drive is a pleasure.
![015small Freedom Group Lavenders in a pot](https://cdn.freedom-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/015small-638x1024.jpg)
Egyptians and Romans used lavender for bathing, relaxation, cooking and as a perfume
![033small Freedom Group Egyptians and Romans used lavender for bathing relaxation cooking and as a perfume](https://cdn.freedom-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/033small-1024x698.jpg)
Like most of these events in Cyprus, North and South, the Lavender Festival was a low-key affair. The Egyptians and Romans used lavender for bathing, relaxation, cooking and as a perfume. Its essential oil is considered, well, essential, by many who keep it on hand to soak away stress. Nicely-presented stalls in the village square, sold oils, soaps and trinkets, although not much actual lavender.
The main business of the day appeared to be lunch, the village restaurants bursting with satisfied customers and cramming in even more when an extraordinary, but thankfully brief, cloudburst threw down fat blobs of rain.
![025small Freedom Group Super nice lavender plant](https://cdn.freedom-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/025small-1024x623.jpg)
There are eight border crossings in Cyprus
![035small Freedom Group Healthy Pure Organic with lavender](https://cdn.freedom-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/035small-1024x666.jpg)
There are eight border crossings in Cyprus, mostly open 24 hours a day to all EU passport holders, and some others. You should check before attempting to pass. Also, know where you are going! There are often multiple names for these checkpoints because they can include English, Greek, and Turkish names, along with the names of the region. For example, the most-used crossing point, Metehan, in the capital, Lefkoşa, is also known as Agios Dometios or Kermiya.