Mighty Aphrodite Hills, a place to pamper yourself

A Cyprus resort has just about everything for those seeking their luxury place in the sun - at a price. Kevin O'Connor reports

Three years ago at a property exhibition in Dublin, Nicos Kyriakides showcased Aphrodite Hills, an evolving development on the southern coast of Cyprus.

Named after the mythical goddess who emerged from the sea, with libidinal powers so awesome as to inspire poets in classical Greek, the development was a hit with wealthy Irish buyers.

"Out of 160 enquiries, I converted 16 into sales," Kyriakides recalls. "About 10 bought villas, costing upwards of €480,000. Now the Irish come and go and treat the place as their home in the sun. Some have become permanent residents."

Further building plots are being released onto the international market over the coming months.

Three days in one of the most luxurious resorts in the world, designed for the palates of the wealthy. A taste of Eastern decadence. Sun, sea - and a golf lesson. How tough can it get?

Not very, for the newly affluent Irish, unphased by the scale of the investment.

For that kind of money, one expects - and receives - the height of luxury. Architect and interior designer are on hand to supervise the evolution of one's home according to individual taste.

Each two-storey villa is built to customer specifications, allowing for different shapes and sizes, while using local stone and inherited façades, influenced by Greek temple, rather in the way Gandon's Irish set-pieces influenced hundreds of 19th century country mansions.

Aphrodite is a development by the Lanitis Group, whose fortune was made in trade and shipping from an island strategically placed between four continents - Europe, Africa, Asia and Arabia.

With the kind of money that overcomes obstacles, Aphrodite Hills is worth seeing, for the sheer scale of the idea, its blending into the coastline under planning conditions so strict as to require innovation - only 8 per cent of the 580 acres can be physically built upon.

Buy a showhouse and the existing fit-out comes free. Now the five-star Intercontinental hotel group has added its presence, its facilities on tap to purchasers of villas and apartments.

I stroll across green swards to the open terraces of the hotel, to be greeted as a guest - it goes with owning or renting a property in these undulating acres of integrated development. Still, there is lingering anxiety.

Could one survive three days away from our own wet island, saturated with history and rain? Will I suffer severe withdrawal symptoms, without daily mention of Ahern or Adams? Try me . . .

The power of pampering converts a weary hack - as the days go by, scepticism evaporates into pleasure. Though situated on the fringes of the Middle East, with Lebanon, Syria and Iraq across the straits, when you are among the 500 coastal acres of Aphrodite Heights you are sanitised from conflict.

Lanitis executives suavely deflect political discussion. Yes, someday, long distant, Turkey might get admission to the EU club of delights, but only when they reform their "attitude" to minorities.

The heart of an Eastern trader beats under Cypriot urbanity. Since acceding to the EU during the Dublin Accord, the authorities are fast-tracking property purchase for EU citizens.

Aphrodite Heights moulds itself to customers' needs: no sound of aircraft overhead, no blaring disco beat, so much space you need to peer to see your fellow guests.

Your own villa with mellow hills on one side and glistening sea on the other. Raise a hand and a dutiful waiter seeks your order for a drink or a snack.

Feeling energetic? Slide in the infinity pool, with a mini Niagara fall, over to the terraces of the Intercontinental Hotel. Order, taste sweetbreads and spiced meats, inspect the decor of several bars, lounge awhile on terraces at every turn. Nearby, a buggy-only golf course rises with the shimmer of the sea over the horizon.

One of its fairways is actually in the air, being a spectacular drive over a deep ravine, to the green distantly on the other. You imagine an awful lot of lost balls down there and might search for them near an underground Spa called The Retreat, whose religious beliefs are based on self-indulgence rather than penance.

Bathed in aromatic oils, strolling from bath-house to pool to sauna, I felt like a Roman Emperor in a pleasure house. "Bring on Aphrodite and the Nubian slaves," I thought.

Instead another of the press party, a rotund Englishman, joined me in his M&S economy shorts, and a PR lady in her pert bikini, all in the cause of business - sufficient to make us all behave with utter, utter decorum.

Modernist in design, ambitious in concept, Aphrodite Hills offers what the affluent age seeks - relaxation with security, service so alert to customer needs as to restore your belief in the word "luxury". The year-round blue skies are built into the price.