Inland from Limassol, the foothills of the Troodhos range are home to a substantial number of Cyprus's commercial vineyards, set amid infertile terrain covered in rnaquis vegetation. With little other significant economic activity, however, many of the villages are moribund, with futures only as weekend retreats for city-dweVers, holiday homes for foreigners or artists' colonies.
The rise to the highest peaks of the Troodhos is not uniform: roads going inland roller-coaster past the first set of barrier ridges into hollows and hidden valleys that contain the bulk of the attractions described below. At one time or another most of these places were fiefs of the Hospitallers or other Lusignan nobility; they lie primarily between 600 and 800 metres above sea level, which results in a pleasant climate even in high summer.
Outsiders will probably pass through the various settlements just off the two main highways up towards the Troodhos, the E601 and the B8, which begin at Erimi and Polernidhia respectively on the Limassol coastal plain. The British first opened a "Wine Road" (later the E601) as far as Omodhos at the beginning of the twentieth century to facilitate the shipping out of the grape harvest.
