Cyprus: Implausibly sunny island

The Akamas peninsula - a spectacular rugged outcrop on Cyprus' north-west coast - encompasses a host of small coves.

I don't know why it took me so long to visit Cyprus. I love the Mediterranean and I love exploring island life - especially in beautiful settings that are steeped in history and myth. The Greek islands have always been my idea of heaven in that respect. Perhaps I simply never felt the need to venture elsewhere.

As the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite, Cyprus has equally impeccable classical credentials. According to Homer's Odyssey, the goddess of love emerged from the waves in a surge of white foam on the island's south coast, next to a craggy limestone rock formation known as Petra Tou Romiou. It was always likely to be my sort of place.

In the end, though, it was the need to travel early in the year that finally took me to Cyprus. It's the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, and also the easternmost and the sunniest. A reputed 300 days of sunshine a year make it a very appealing prospect for visiting outside of the regular summer season.

In early spring, when Greece has yet to warm up, Cyprus is usually blue-skied, balmy and ablaze with fields of flowers. (The wild orchids appear in the lowlands from February.

By this time of year, you can expect vivid swathes of scarlet gladioli, alongside silky drifts of almond blossom.)

It was March when I made my first visit - a month which even the most loyal Graecophile would be pushed to recommend as a promising bet for Greek island-hopping. To my delight, the weather was gorgeous. The sea was a bit too cool for swimming, but turquoise and glittering. The sand was warm. The air was luminous.

As a newcomer to Cyprus, I'd decided to let the island give me its best shot and had opted for an awesomely luxurious destination - the Anassa hotel and spa, built like a mini-village on the coast of the secluded Akamas Peninsula.

The Akamas peninsula is part of the Republic of Cyprus (rather than the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). The peninsula is the spectacular rugged outcrop on its north-west coast, encompassing a host of small coves and turtle beaches. The fine sandy beach on Chrysochou Bay, which the hotel leads down to, is said to be one of the best on the island.

Being a bit of a beachcomber, I sometimes have a struggle with exclusive hotels. But it was hard not to like the Anassa. Complete with its own market square and Byzantine church, the complex is made up of pretty, whitewashed villas with biscuit-coloured roof tiles, set amid lovely gardens that are laden with bougainvillea and lanterna and awash with lavender and aromatic herbs. It was wonderfully restful. Birds sang in the trees, and tiny white butterflies floated like rose petals.