Varosha

Famagusta · Cypern · Abandoned site

In the resort abandoned overnight in 1974, party music drifts from empty hotels — and a woman in white vanishes from her balcony.

Varosha was the glamorous beach playground of the Mediterranean, where stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot holidayed, until its residents fled headlong during the Turkish invasion of 1974. The quarter has stood fenced off and frozen in time ever since, breakfast tables still laid and clothes still hanging in shop windows. Visitors and guards have reported whispers, laughter and screams along empty streets, footsteps crunching behind them in the gravel, and shadowy figures in 1970s clothing at the windows. At the abandoned Aspelia Hotel, music is sometimes said to play as if a party were still going on, and one sentry testified to seeing a woman in white on a balcony who was gone when he looked again.

FAQ

Where is Varosha located?

Varosha is in Famagusta, Cypern.