My husband and I booked a room for 4 nights to see a little of Northern Cyprus while waiting for our flights out of Ercan airport so we were not looking for the vacation-of-a- lifetime type place. We'd already been in Paphos 3 months (see review) and were just looking for a cheap place to stay our last few days. We arrived on Ramadan and so everything was heavily booked for that weekend and it was hard finding a place but Bare Hill offered a great rate.

The Good News:
The resort is in one of the lusher areas of Cyprus and just 6km or so from Kyrenia on the main coast road. We did not have a car but it was easy to get around by frequent and inexpensive dolmus service which took us into Kyrenia and up the coast. The resort is situated under the beautiful Pentadactyl mountain range and from the back porch of our room you could see the ruins of St Hilarion castle impressively situated on the top of the rocky mountains. It was lovely to see it lit up at night.

You can access paid beaches just up the main road but the beaches are nothing special in Cyprus so you are better off with a great pool and gardens you can use for free in our opinion.

There are a couple of great supermarkets just a short walk up the road and numerous restaurants. We did not get breakfast with our room as we had a kitchenette. Our room was a spacious ground floor studio right next to the restaurant and reception. We had a nice balcony overlooking the pool and gardens and could even see the sea. It was lovely sitting out there. The room had a small kitchenette and large bedroom with king bed.

The Bad News:
The room was a downer in terms of cleanliness. Outside the room there were little garbage cans along the path for guests to put their garbage but most guests dumped their garbage and litter beside the bin outside our entry door and for the first two days we had to look at it out our kitchen window. I saw staff walk by the garbage constantly and no one bothered to pick it up so it was an eyesore.

The bathroom was filthy. Clumps of hair and dried urine stuck to the base of the toilet bowl, fresh mould grew all over the shower stall, hair and pink slime and brown slime were in every corner of the shower stall and bathroom and there was a huge ball of hair in the drain which I had to clean out to get the water to drain. I rubbed a bit of the mould in the shower stall with my finger and it came off easily. So the room had not been properly cleaned in a long time. The grouting was black with mould and the bathroom stunk. I felt dirtier after a shower than before.

There was hair and hair pins and muck in drawers. The king bed was a grubby double mattress but only the top mattress was covered so you had to look at the dirty base which was not conducive to a restful nights sleep.

We took our laptop over to the lobby building and set up on a coffee table. The top of the table was filthy with dust and dirt and rings from drinks. The bottom shelf of the table was also layered with thick dust and very dirty. The owner sent a boy over to wipe it down when he saw us grimacing. Pictures in the lobby and restaurant were askew and from what I could see of the disaster in the kitchen we wouldn't risk eating there.

We went out to the pool our first day but the pool had a greenish tinge to it and I saw brown slime on the tiling in areas so we did not risk going in.

In the end we decided to move into Kyrenia our final night as there is no night reception and we had to catch the 4am bus to the airport and were afraid the taxi would not turn up out there at that time. There was no phone in the room (working) as advertised so we would be really stuck if the taxi did not arrive to take us to Kyrenia.

I must say the owner and his son were very attentive and kind and helpful both before and during our stay and I informed them of the lack of cleanliness before we left. They did take immediate action to rectify the situation after I sent them an email highlighting our concerns over the cleanliness. We went into town to find another hotel for our final night and on our return the garbage and litter outside the room had been completely cleaned up and so had our room. The shower stall had been thoroughly scrubbed of all the filth as had the floors and every corner. The clump of hair was still sticking to the outer toilet bowl but the smell was greatly improved. We were left fresh sheets and towels and the owners apologized and promised to fix up any problems. I also saw the owner examining the pool and it did look cleaner the next day.

We thanked the owners for taking immediate action and informed them we would be leaving a day early. We were not offered a refund on our final night. Frankly we could not wait to leave. I don't mind basic but I do expect cleanliness. This would be a nice little basic resort in a lovely setting if the cleanliness issues are addressed.