Royal Palm

Richly understated, like the shudderingly good non-taste of cream, Royal Palm's patina belies its mere 15 years - you'd think it predated by decades the current tyranny of pushy resort geometry, statement water features for pools. Whitewashed, garlanded with neon fuchsia, 84 sprucely masculine terraced rooms and suites end with the private Royal suite, complete with its own pool. The sea, millpond-still, winks through palms and windsurf sails. Over mahi-mahi fish fingers and Chablis at the Bar-Plage - leather-lined plantation chairs below a spreading tree - the day winds by, an entrancing silent movie of couples' barely murmured intimacies against the cine-flickering of sunlight through fronds. Speedboats furrowing the bay mesmerise a cigar-smoking Bardotesque sextuagenarian with her back deliberately to the proceedings. In the balmy terrace bar, margaritas slip down with the scarlet end of the day. Then, seen later, from the same chairs after dinner (shrimp rogaille, wisps of dill-laden smoked marlin), constellations cartwheel imperceptibly by in the clear night above. From £2,102 B&B through Beachcomber Tours (01483 533008).