Fraktis Xyliatou is the big one on the Nicosia side of the mountains: a picnic ground with room for more than six hundred people beside Xyliatos Dam, wrapped in the dense woodland of Adelfoi Forest at 514 metres, about fifty minutes' drive from central Nicosia. Recent upgrades have given it covered barbecues and tables, a renewed children's playground, a fire-safety system, and tables with proper wheelchair access, alongside drinking water — the full outfit for a family Sunday.
The dam is the heart of the place. After a wet winter it overflows, sending a waterfall over the spillway — a small spectacle that draws visitors in its own right.
For walkers the site could hardly be better placed: the Xyliatos trail, an easy circular loop of about four kilometres around the reservoir, starts a hundred metres from the tables. The E4 passes two and a half kilometres away, and the Agios Georgios Kafkalou and Stavros tou Agiasmati – Panagia tou Araka trails both begin within three and a half kilometres.