Polis Chrysochous

Best Hotels and Resorts in the World: The Gold List 2022

"There is a reason that Anassa has so many “superloyals,” as they call them at the front desk—guests who return on the same week, year after year. Life feels supremely comfortable in this series of immaculate white buildings tumbling down the hillside to the coffee-colored beach below. Still owned by the Cypriot Michaelides family, the 23-year-old hillside estate has always been classic, even after a renovation in 2016, when Parisian interior designer Joelle Pleot stuck largely to elegant creams and Hamptons nautical stripes. The spa—including a midnight-blue, glass-roofed thalassotherapy pool that stopped me in my sliders—is sensational. But the reason I really understand all those repeat guests is the seemingly effortless multigenerational appeal. On a recent post-lockdown visit, we were given beach baskets brimming with toys, and left our son to pottery lessons and treasure hunts at the brilliant kids’ club as we sauntered off for local rosé at the cavernous, adults-only Basiliko restaurant, with its sunken terrace. Anassa also offers babysitting services and a family photographer, yet none of it feels twee or forced. Instead, this is a place to dangle one’s feet over the edge of a sun-warmed pool, or wander through fragrant gardens against a soundtrack of crickets, wood pigeons, and gently lapping sea. It is a place, in other words, to keep coming back to. Doubles from $540. —Becky Lucas" - CNT Editors