The division of Cyprus between Greece and Turkey is abating—slowly. At a pivotal moment, G. Y. Dryansky savors both parts of an eastern Mediterranean island steeped in history

Here was that rare thing, a world hot spot where I didn't need a flak jacket. Never mind an edge, Cyprus promised a vivid education and more—and, beyond open-minded curiosity, all I needed for the trip were a swimsuit and a credit card able to cope with the ultrastrong Cyprus pound. This island on the Asian end of the Mediterranean, whose natives nonetheless doggedly consider themselves European, was a place where "now" was happening on an important scale and where historic ruins gave vivid context to the whole story. I had also heard about sumptuous resorts on a bright dot of land surrounded by blue water: It all added up to a privileged journey.

The summer weather was even hotter than usual, but the political climate was balmier than it had been in half a century. The border that divided the island between Turkish and Greek Cypriots had opened to allow a limited stream of travelers, bringing an enthusiasm for being together that these people had not shown since that fatal time in 1974 when Cyprus endured a Greek coup d'état, a Turkish invasion, the turmoil of uprooting, and massacres that foreshadowed the ethnic conflicts which have pained the world ever since. Lately, there has been a groundswell of support for voting out the hard-liners in the Turkish north. And it was hoped that U.S. pressure would make Turkey agree to a reunification deal, so that the whole island could join the European Union this May.

Arm-twisting was needed because elections in December failed, by a whisker, to provide a majority for unification. Nonetheless, thanks to a long-sought concession from the Turkish Republic of Cyprus—officially known to every country but Turkey as the occupied north—the crossing between north and south had become easier.

At a checkpoint in the heart of Nicosia, my wife, Joanne, and I strolled through with an instant visa and the warning that we had to be back, like Cinderella, by midnight; if not, the south would not let us return. We kept the restriction in mind even though, days before, a Polish friend had glided blithely across on her bicycle, coming home from a party at 2 a.m. The mood here was definitely mellow.

With a Turkish taxi driver hired for the day, we set forth for the first of two day-excursions into the north, which the southerners, in their territory burgeoning with hotels and villas, consider a time warp of underdevelopment. In the distance, as we drove toward Kyrenia, Five Fingers Mountain was imprinted with a composition of the Turkish flag many miles square. Red Turkish banners were flying in the dusty villages, where women in traditional Muslim headdress looked much as they do in the countryside of the Asian part of Turkey. Ali Mehmet, our driver, made a point of distancing himself from all this.

"I'm not Turkish," he said, "any more than I'm Greek. I'm a Cypriot, and I know only one Cyprus." You might argue that he was playing to what he thought were the Greek-leaning sentiments of two travelers from the other side. But his aloofness toward the roadside villagers seemed pretty genuine. Half the Turkish Cypriots have left the island since the separation, while more than twice as many Turkish immigrants from the primitive hinterlands of Anatolia have arrived. I sensed the same rejection of the "Asians" that I'd experienced among well-educated Turks on the European side of Istanbul—even though geographically Cyprus is a piece of the Anatolian Peninsula that once broke off into the sea.