Pitsilia

Pitsilia is an agricultural region in the highlands of Cyprus, with a total area of about 61,000 hectares. It occupies the eastern, north-eastern and south-eastern parts of the Troodos Mountains at elevations between roughly 500 and 1,600 metres, and its villages belong to the districts of Limassol and Nicosia. The land is rocky and falls away on very steep slopes, so it has been used mainly for grazing goats and sheep and for producing small amounts of cereals, wine and grapes. The region contains four of the best known churches of the Church of Cyprus, in the villages of Palaichori Oreinis, Platanistasa, Pelendri and Lagoudera, which are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Local tradition holds that the highlands sheltered people who resettled there to escape persecution at the end of the fourth century and refugees during the Arab invasion of 653, and that the name Pitsilia developed from an older Greek word for the area. The region's festivals blend Christian and ancient Greek traditions.