The village Plataniskia or Platanisteia located 40 kilometres west of Limassol. It is built on top of a hill that dominates the region that extends to the bay Avdimou.
To reach the village, you have to pass through Avdimou and then go uphill the road, straight to the village of Agios Thomas, continue from there and in a few kilometers you will find yourself on the stone built village of Plataniskia.
During the journey you will notice the thousands of carob trees. Endless areas covered by the tree that produces the "black gold", the carobs. Trees that are very old since they are huge. Some new plantations of carob trees are surprising, and this is not unrelated to the fact that the carob, became a marketable product once again.
Upon entering the village, your feelings are ambiguous. You will see houses, new or renovated, built with stone, but you will see dozens of others, also of stone, abandoned and dilapidated. You will see monuments, of another religion, desecrated and damaged.
An old school, on top of a small hill, was transformed into a church. On the east side, a narthex was added and in the northeast corner you will see a belfry. It is dedicated to Agios Georgios.
Upon walking along the narrow paved alleys, you will realize that the residents are not the owners. When you ask, they will answer that they originate from Eptakomi of Famagusta District. They are people that were forced out of their homes, their villages, their churches. They live in homes of strangers, waiting to return to their own ones. This expectation is that "breaks" the dreams of the people and does not allow them to feel the place like their own.
In the small square in the center of the village, there is the Engraving museum of the world famous engraver Hambis. Visitors of the museum, but also the many small children accompanied by their parents, "come alive" once they arrive at the village.
Hambis is not the only artist who chose Plataniskia to spend the years of anticipation, to return to his village. In the streets of the village, you will see other houses that "host" displaced artists, such as painters. In too many houses you will see the inscription «Famagusta», welcoming you to their front door.
The houses inhabited, resemble to small palaces, with their balconies and patios covered by flowering shrubs and trees. This too, is a sample of the noble origin of their occupants.
A small office and home of the Mukhtar, as well as the the folk tavern "Plataniskia" complete the picture of the small square. On the road east, 50 meters from the square, you will find the offices of the Community Council. A little further east, there is a damaged monument.
What is striking is the cleanliness that prevails in the streets of the village. In the beginning, people will "look at" you with some indifference. But it is obvious that they are trying to understand who you are and what you want in the village. Talk with them and when find out where you come from, they will embrace you and accommodate you.
The Plataniskia is a village without identity and only with the certainty of peace across the island, will this identity be retrieved.
