Cyprus

• On the Ship where every one knows your name
• Paris is perfect, if you ditch the men! - France
• An appetite of Venice - Italy
• Party time in Tapas Central - Spain
• Croatia uncovered! - Croatia
• I'll have the state room please - Portugal
• Seeking Spain's hidden gems - Spain
• Let's tryst again - Sicily
• Dallying with Delia - Majorca
• Wax gets the works - Majorca
• B&B at the Palace - Italy
• The Golden Oldie - France
• Amazing Amalfi - Italy
• Follow the Stars - Europe
• Tuscany - Italy
• Even baby was in the lap of luxury - Cyprus

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME warm milk in your room, madam? A steriliser? How about some swimming nappies?

Not the kind of questions you’d expect on arriving at a five-star hotel, but then this was no ordinary resort.

Since our year-old daughter was born, I’d been dreading going away. I would never travel in style like Bogart and Bacall, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Instead, stretching ahead, were years of theme parks, children’s menus and wiping noses in airport queues.

But we needed a break and I wasn’t sure I could wait until Olivia’s 18th birthday, so we agreed to do our first ‘family holiday’. My husband James and I wrote down our list of essentials.

Luxury was a given; as any mum or dad knows, massages, beauty treatments, pampering – frankly even five minutes to oneself – are a rare commodity in ‘Parentville’.

This was our week to enjoy them all. We also wanted beautiful surroundings, great food and glorious sunshine – and, of course, up-todate baby facilities so that we didn’t need to schlep half a ton of kiddie products in our luggage.

But could it really be possible to travel in serious style with a baby? An hour after touching down at Paphos Airport in Cyprus, we felt certain it was.

Luxury was a given

The destination was perfect; just a four-and-a-half-hour flight but distant enough to guarantee late summer sun. The Anassa is an exclusive destination on a headland on Cyprus’s west coast.

As we arrived, chauffeur- driven (complete with child seat), we were swept into the cool marble reception, vast and elegant. Waiting were two chilled glasses of home-made lemonade with fresh mint and another without ice for the baby. A promising start.

The resort is part of the Thanos group which runs three immaculate hotels on the island, including the funky Almyra (of which more later).

But what makes Thanos different from other hotel groups is its pioneering attitude to families, especially the ‘Baby Go Lightly’ service, which allows you to pre-book everything from tailor-made meals to cots and high chairs.

We chose interconnecting rooms. In ours was a vast bed, a marble bathroom filled with designer products and a terrace overlooking the Med.

We ate on our private terrace every night

In Olivia’s was a new teddy bear and a baby room service menu: in short, every luxury a one-year-old could hope for. Another exceptional feature of the Anassa is the creche – ah, the creche. Every parent’s guilty choice. Whether to spend all your time with the children on holiday, or indulge in a little bit of ‘us’ time.

The lovely Fiona, Claire, Abi and Sarah run a brilliant creche here. It’s light and airy, full of toys, safe and clean. Olivia absolutely loved it and immediately honed in on three-year-old William, who soon became the love of her life.

My husband and I went off to the luxurious spa, happy in the knowledge that she wouldn’t miss us for a minute. The spa was perfect. Its smooth corridors perfumed with the most heavenly smells – lavender, orange blossom and neroli.

The indoor pool was lined with day beds for quiet relaxation. An outdoor Jacuzzi was bathed in sunlight, perfect to sit and catch up on some important reading in Elle and Cosmopolitan.

We had lunch every day at the terrace restaurant, Pelagos, which had a huge al fresco griddle packed with delicious fish – so fresh it could only have been caught that morning.

feasted on prawns, tuna, bass and bream while Olivia munched on home-made fish and chips, fresh fruit and delicious Greek yogurt with honey. In the evenings, we ate on our private terrace every night bar one, which we spent at the hotel’s signature restaurant, Basiliko (we booked a girl from the creche to babysit).

After four perfect days at the Anassa we travelled down the coast to the Almyra, its luxury sister hotel in Paphos and tucked away near the beach-front.

Where the Anassa is all grown-up marble and film-star glitz, the Almyra is its hipper, younger sibling. Here is one chilled-out storey of concrete and wood, candlelit evenings on the terrace and panoramic views.

The hotel was rescued from what was a nightmare of a building – the Paphos Beach Hotel, the town’s first seaside resort that opened in 1972. What Thanos has done with this place is nothing short of spectacular.

To be part of it makes you feel very cool

The al fresco restaurant is funkily architectural – vines climb through the canopy, DJs play perfect mixes, there’s a great cocktail bar, a sushi menu and some very sophisticated food.

The whole effect is one of modernist chic and to be part of it makes you feel very cool. In the newly-opened spa I had the most sensational treatment: a three-hour seaweed body scrub, massage and facial.

Pampered and rested, we returned from Cyprus utterly invigorated. The holiday had been a triumph – easier than I had thought possible and far more enjoyable.

We had taken our baby for her first swim in the sea – a magical moment. We had eaten well and caught up on our reading. And we’d done it all in style without a chicken nugget – or tantrum – in sight.