Riverside Villas – The History by Vakis Papanastassiou
The north-west part of Cyprus holds a very special part in my family’s hearts. Goudi, a small village a few kilometres from the town of Polis and the coast is where my late mother was born and where I spent my childhood summer holidays (in Cyprus nearly three months long), looked after by my grandmother and aunts and roaming the hills and fields with my brother and cousins, as we were all dispatched there to escape the heat of the cities. Even now there is a 5-6 degrees difference in temperature from Nicosia, which when the thermometer hits 40, as it does all summer long, it is significant.
Olive groves, citrus orchards and prickle-pear hedges were the backdrop to our adventures and games. Old, derelict stone houses, damaged by earthquakes and abandoned, were our castles and citadels. The small river which flows even in the summer with its canes and old bridges (which in antiquity carried gold nuggets from the mountains, hence the name Chrysochou – Χρύσος = Gold, Χέω = To pour), ideal for hide and seek. When our parents came for the weekends, we would get to go to the beach and spend the whole day in the water, occasionally coming out for a snack or a drink.
As time went on and the older ones were deemed able to look after the younger ones we were able to venture to Akamas on our own, camping in the wild, unspoilt peninsula for days. Eating what we would fish and exploring land and sea until we knew them like the back of our hands.
I carried on that tradition when 25 years later I returned to Cyprus with my own family, taking my daughters and nieces on annual camping trips every October, in a different cove every year and delighted that they can now explore the area on their own and introduce their friends from all over the world to this wonderful part of Cyprus.
When we came back to Cyprus in 2005, we never really discussed where we would have a summer house. It was the natural assumption for us as a family that this was going to be in Goudi. My wife and daughters had already experienced the area and its beauty on our occasional summer vacations to Cyprus and caught the bug.
My brother and sister with their families were of similar view and so the Riverside “project” was born. The initial plan was to build 10 villas in a plot that we bought, a stone’s throw away from the house our mother was born.
The first three were completed in 2007 and the three of us acquired one each. Unfortunately, the second phase was derailed by the world financial crisis in 2010 and then by the near-bankruptcy of the Cyprus economy that followed a few years later. The project remained dormant for the next 10 years with half-finished houses standing empty until 2021 when we decided to complete the work. The lessons and experience from spending a lot of time in the house and the area over the years were assimilated, plans were re-drawn, the overgrowth cleared, and the builders moved in!
A year later we are delighted to welcome guests to Riverside, in what we hope will be a home away from home. Newly-completed and furnished units to the highest standards, providing flexible accommodation and a base for exploring the area, which is an all-year round destination.