Next day, in the north, Ali Mehmet drove us through the parched Mesaoria Plain to the least developed part of the island. Its hilly wheat fields, dotted with olive trees, lead to sandy beaches. Occasionally the roadside was lined with fresh villas. Both the north and the south are bustling with construction. "Sixty thousand dollars," our driver said, as we passed a cluster of whitewashed houses with views of the road, dry fields, and the sea. "You'd pay twice as much in the south, but if reunification comes, you don't know what a title granted by the north would be worth."

We lunched at the Salamis Bay Conti Resort, which Mehmet assured us was the finest on the northern side. The vast, well-kept hotel soars above the bay, with rooms for 750 people. It looked as if a good portion of that number were enjoying the buffet in the huge, airy, open dining area above the beach. At fourteen dollars per person, the delectable lunch was of an opulence to shame any of Club Med's famous alfresco meals. Except for a handful of women, most of them in headdress, the crowd was composed of men. The hotel serves as a place to reward white-collar workers who did well for their Turkish companies.

The sun had declined enough for us to visit the Salamis archaeological ruin, the most significant one on the island. What they have unearthed so far are traces of the Roman and Byzantine periods of the site. Since Mycenaean times, this was the important city of the island and long its capital. Earthquakes did Salamis in. The most intact parts of the site are the forum, whose white colonnade gleamed in the sunlight, and the ample theater, which, unlike the one in Soli, is arrestingly preserved.

We headed next to the Akamas Peninsula, the south's equivalent of the natural beauty of the Karpas. The Troodos Mountains prevent a direct path from Nicosia; we took the best route, driving south to Limassol, west to Paphos, and north again. On great parts of the road west, you pass the Cyprus you've read about: miles of holiday encampments to which the British flock on direct flights from a dozen cities. Soon enough, though, the road that goes north from Paphos leads through rolling brown foothills along the sea to the Akamas Peninsula.

Here, at the edge of the nature preserve where sea turtles come to lay their eggs, sits the Anassa Hotel—by the grace of a former foreign minister who is part owner. It is a word-of-mouth prize resort among European sybarites, although Greenpeace howled when the place went up a few years ago. Looking at uglier hotels down the road and another nearby on the beach, I find it hard to point a finger at Anassa, despite the fact that its main building stands irritatingly high on the landscape. You could argue against the taste of that whole building, with its faint air of a mausoleum, but I wouldn't quarrel with its lavishness. We spent three days soaking up luxury in a suite in one of the classically Mediterranean-looking outbuildings.