I suppose I wasn't being particulalry open minded when I agreed to go to Cyrpus. I'd read the bumph and bought the t-shirt that Ayia Napa was as trashy as it was possible to be. Add 40 degree heat, a few marital tensions and stress brought on by the flying, and a holiday in Skegness might have been a better option.

We realised day one, that we didnthave enough money to survive in Ayia Napa for a week, unless we subsisted on a diet of McFlurrys and bottled water. Thankfully the temperature was so hot that eating was more or less uneceesary until gone 9pm, where we scurried out in the cooling evening around the neon streets to pick up a pizza slice or some authentic Cypriot egg fried rice.

Thank goodness we had picked our hotel: the building was basically the roof for an Aqua Club that shut its doors at 8am every morning. Bedrooms were just placed to have sex in before crashing on the sun loungers all day. My worst fears about this town confirmed, we agreed that we had to leave the hotel and find a beach.

I am absolutely not a travel snob: I love a good slump by the pool as much as the next person. Unfortunately, a romantic break it was not, and after a hectic few months of summer working, we probably chose the wrong location. We set out on our trip to the sea. Thoughts of beautiful picture postcards from Cyprus danced around my brain: we hadn't actually seen the sea yet because of the rows upon rows of complexes between our hotel and the coastline, but we were sure it was out there.

'The problem is that the road doesn't seem to turn away from this strip of shops' complained Sam, who, to his credit, was definitely bearing the brunt of my irritation at our apparently inland holiday destination. After a quick conferral over our Blackberrys we decided that the quickest way to see some sea-action was to duck under the hotel hedge, clamber across the grounds, past a luxury golf course and over some rocks.

Blue, litter filled and slightly sticky, we tentatively touched this churning ocean with our toes. Surprised to see fish alive in this tar-ry water I jumped in: good enough for some fish, good enough for me.

The next few days were spent trying to work out how to leave Ayia Napa. Kept up until about 5am every morning, and not being able to join in the party because of lack of funds, we decided to rent a quad bike and break the border between greek and Turkish Cyprus. We were advised by most not to go, and indeed, as we set off (the seat was so hot I'd had to pour water on it to get it to a cool enough temperature to crouch over).

As soon as we were out of Ayia Napa, the holiday got better. The sun shone more, the breeze wafted playfully through our hair as we, perhaps illegally, took advantage of the motorway and quadbiked it up on the slow lane. The border village had a look out point. For 1 Euro we were allowed to peer through a pair of tatty binoculars out over no-mans land, where we could see the deserted city of Famagusta, and sentries marching like ants over the dusty, deserted ground. Thanking our guide for pointing out that we were wasting our time in trying to cross the border, we picked up the quad bike and turned it round (it didn't have a reverse function) and sped off towards the border.

Sailing past the border guards and stopping only to get a short term visa, we sped off into Turkey. After spending days on end watching people get drunk and trying to reach the same level of inebriation with a one euro seventy five bottle of cider, we thought a cultural visit to some roman ruins might reinvigorate the old brain cells.

We were however, absolutely distracted by a beach. This was no ordinary beach. There was no litter, no people and no noise. It was just sunbed after sunbed with perfect parasols and a gentle shef of white sands which dipped under the crystalline blue water. Gladly pulling my charred skin off the leather seat, I threw myself into the water, where we were promptly joined by lots of small children who practised diving off the little pier that jutted out happily.

Leaving the roman ruins for another couple to enjoy, we sped back to the high rises and dirty beaches of Grecian Cyprus, as the red sun set behind us.