Columbia Beach Resort, Cyprus

This is a really lovely resort hotel in a very quiet village right on the beach. The rooms are spacious and they'll happily accomodate different numbers of kids in rooms with extra beds. Each room has a small kitchen area so you can store cold drinks (the village store is a 5-10 min stroll away) and make a cuppa.

The really stand out thing about the hotel is the extraordinary pool which is enormous and really inviting for kids. There's also an elegant but smallish indoor pool in the spa which imagine would be useful if you went in the midst of winter. We didn't really need to use it. There's tennis and squash/racquets and watersports - sailing and water-skiing and they'll do you a deal if you haggle hard. You can lounge by the pool, in the gardens or by the beach and the sea is warm and clear and calm for swimming. When there isn't a wedding on the lawn, it makes a great footie pitch.

You can hire a car and visit the Trodos mountains for the day, a picturesque diversion if you're getting a bit stir crazy.

There's a very friendly kids' club with lots of arts and crafts going down. My five year old dipped in periodically to make loads of stuff out of stones which we "accidentally" left behind when we left.

The food is good - particularly the breakfasts, which are buffet style but they'll cook you pancakes and omelettes to your stomach's content. We always planned to eat loads at breakfast and skip lunch but it never quite worked out that way. We just ate loads at breakfast and then had lunch. We didn't try the posh restaurant in the evening as it was pretty pricey and not really for kids but there are a couple of other more casual choices and lots of good cheaper alternatives in the village.

We went during May half term which is ideal temperature-wise - sunny and warm but not too hot and the sea was very swimmable. The transfer is very straightforward and the flight fine too (Easyjet for us).

Basically it's great place for a restful family holiday. The kids will love it and you'll get to lie down for a bit.



It's pretty ideal for a

We loved Columbia Beach Resort - it is in a lovely position with a grassy area that stretches down to the beach and is only a 5 minute walk for Pissouri Bay village which has a few bars and restaurants. The pool area is lovely, as is the spa. The food in both the taverna and the a la carte restaurants was excellent as was the service. Rooms are typically Cypriot with traditional furnishings.