Meet the neighbours

Its opulent pools afford views of distant Turkey. Its architecture is neo-Classical. And neo-Byzantine. And neo-Venetian. It's the poshest hotel in Cyprus, if not the entire eastern Mediterranean. It is paradise on earth, until it's time to...

Brian Viner
Friday 09 July 1999 23:02 BST
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There are two swimming-pools at the Anassa. One is so chic and serene that it scares people away. It's bloody cold, too. The other pool is as warm as a bath and more lively. But it is no poor relation. It has mosaic tiles and passing waiters carrying silver trays, and on the sunbeds around it there are enough Rolexes to sink a Lilo.

The children in the swimming-pool had pump-action water pistols, in fact not so much pistols, as Kalashnikovs. "We're Nato, you're Serbia," cried the boys. Placidly, the girls agreed, then rewrote history by comprehensively out-squirting the enemy. Their parents smiled indulgently behind their Gucci sunglasses. Elsewhere in Cyprus, the conflict in Yugoslavia was causing much anguish, not least because President Clinton had been about to get to grips with the 25-year-old Turkish occupation of the island, before getting bogged down in the Balkans. But we were on holiday. And kids will be kids.

These, though, were rich kids. And while they played in the pool, their fathers played FTSE with one another. For this was the Anassa, less than a year old and already by far the swishest hotel in Cyprus, perhaps in the entire eastern Mediterranean. Leonardo DiCaprio was there shortly before us - "small and pudgy", we were reliably informed - as were Simon and Yasmin Le Bon and family. Our fellow guests, however, were business tycoons rather than film and pop stars; indeed, the hotel register could easily have been mistaken for the Sunday Times Rich List. For a week I watched them from behind my FW Woolworth sunglasses. They are an amazing breed.

Some had arrived by private jet. All had a mobile phone, that most indispensable of poolside accessories. When a Belgian multi-millionairess was reported unwell one day, we assumed she was suffering from that troublesome cousin of tennis elbow, Cellnet ear. Her nanny kept us posted. They all had nannies, one of whom was clearly under instructions to keep the children as far away from their mother as possible for the duration of the holiday. When the children did venture uncomfortably close, Mother quickly picked up her mobile phone again.

Another woman was the European Champions' Cup of trophy wives, and boasted the most upstanding breasts that share dividends can buy. But was she happy? Not according to the nanny. By day two we were on gossiping terms with every nanny round the pool. By day three, we had enough salacious detail to fill a Jilly Cooper novel and then some.

The poolside novel of choice, however, was Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I clocked five copies, and offered silent thanks that I hadn't brought one too, having percipiently decided that it would be too much of a cliche on a Greek-ish island. Instead, I took Things Can Only Get Better, John O'Farrell's entertaining account of a Labour voter's 18 years in political purgatory. It was a book that none of my fellow guests could even begin to relate to, I thought. Thatcherites all, surely? But I was wrong. A nice man, who turned out to be an accomplished TV producer, stopped by my sunbed to discuss it. He and his wife normally rent a cottage in Ireland, but this year decided to splash out big-style, on the most extravagant holiday of their lives.

For them, and for us, the Anassa seemed impossibly grand. White villas with pale blue shutters and terracotta roofs are clustered around a palatial central building, which houses spectacular modern interpretations of ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and even Venetian architecture. The marble rotundas and corridors are littered with antique bits of this and that. A magnificent terrace looks north, towards the distant mountains of reviled Turkey.

Outside, along paths winding past fields of magnificent wildflowers, stand several huge urns. And, down by the pool, I watched several huge earners. They were not happy. In fact, they were extremely cross. The Anassa, they thought, was not all it had been cracked up to be. They had come here only because the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados was closed for refurbishment. And the Sandy Lane would never charge pounds 10 for video-recorder rental, not when room rates were already so high. In fairness, they had a point.

Back at the pool, we watched in appalled fascination as two or three of the most disgruntled multi-millionaires led a kind of insurrection. Historically, the proletariat has risen against the monied classes. At the Anassa it was the other way round, as first the staff and finally the manager were confronted by growing deputations of Armani-trunked tycoons. They complained that their travel agents had told them that the indoor health spa was "a lick of paint away" from completion. Again, they had a point. My wife had a massage and was urged to relax. Without the background din of pneumatic drilling, she might have managed to do so.

But when the last lick of paint is finally applied to the Anassa, it will be a legitimate destination for the super-rich, a home away from home. It is, after all, one of Preferred Hotels, an American-managed marketing group that rigorously, almost obsessively, checks the standards of its member hotels. And it already excels in several important departments. In fact, the smartest of its three restaurants, Basiliko, serves French- oriental food that would be the envy of London, New York, even Paris.

My lobster and salt cod ravioli in burnt sage butter and yoghurt was exquisite. But not, of course, very Cypriot. By day four we were suffering from taramasalata-withdrawal symptoms. Our four-year-old memorably asked, "Mummy, do they have hummus in Cyprus?"

So we left the Anassa behind in pursuit of taramasalata and hummus, and found it in the shabby beachfront restaurants of Latchi, two miles away, served by swarthy young men who looked as though they had never ventured much beyond Limassol, but in fact knew every twist and bottleneck on the North Circular Road. Almost every Cypriot we met had either lived in north London themselves, or had relatives in Wood Green. Surreally, one of the porters at the Anassa recommended one taverna in nearby Polis, and two in Finsbury Park.

The mass exodus from Cyprus dates from 1974, when the Turks invaded, and bitterness over the occupation still permeates everyday life. In Latchi, among the dusty postcards featuring topless blondes and old women on donkeys, are others with meaningful captions such as "Nicosia - a Divided City", and "The Futility of War". And at the remarkable mountain-top monastery of Chrysorroyiatissa, I read that the building was pillaged by the Turks in 1571 and again in 1821, and that "in the August of 1974, the Turkish hordes again bombarded the monastery, this time from the air". I had always thought of hordes as being essentially medieval, perhaps wielding scimitars. Not if you're Greek Cypriot, they're not.

The monastery, just outside the tumbledown village of Panayia, birthplace of Archbishop Makarios, was founded in 1152. Apparently a painting of the Virgin

Mary, by none other than St Luke, was thrown into the sea off Asia Minor to save it from iconoclasts, and was washed up on Cyprus where it was found by a monk called Ignatius. On the way back to his hermitage Ignatius fell asleep, and was commanded by God to build a church on the spot. The painting of the Virgin Mary remains there, fiercely guarded by an ancient crone who may well have known Ignatius personally. My wife thought she might possibly have been his mother. Disappointingly, she refused to let us see the icon, which was hidden behind a red velvet shroud. She was far too intimidating to argue with.

On the long and winding road back from Chrysoroyiatissa, we stopped for lunch at the mountain village of Phyti. In a humble caff, we ate the most sublime grilled halloumi, followed by memorably delicious stifado. At the next table, eight old men - with, by our reckoning, three teeth between them - watched us blankly. The Anassa seemed light years away.

We continued our journey, past almond and olive groves, vines, cypresses, cedars and carob trees, and vast meadows of giant red poppies. As on so many Mediterranean islands, the vast majority of holiday-makers cling stubbornly to the coast, yet the interior is startlingly picturesque. Eventually we spotted the Anassa, a vision in whitewash, framed by the dark Akamas peninsula. Akamas is the island's principal national park, a spectacular wilderness where construction has for years been ferociously controlled. If the Anassa's owner, Mr Michaelides, had not been the former minister of foreign affairs, planning permission might have been harder to obtain. As it is, he is said to have spent upwards of $30m creating a gorgeous younger sister for his other five-star hotel, the Annabelle in Paphos.

None of which cut much ice with the Rich List back at the pool, where mobile phones continued to trill and even lawsuits were being mentioned. One family, desperate to flee Cyprus, finally managed to squeeze aboard a plane to Beirut, only 45 minutes away. Refugees in Calvin Klein. It was, of course, their own plane.

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