Brunton Boatyard

In the sea-facing rooms at Brunton Boatyard the bathroom has a window on the harbour, so a bath comes with the shipping: fishing boats and ferries pass close by, out where the Periyar River meets the Arabian Sea. George Brunton and Sons built boats on this stretch of the Fort Kochi waterfront in the nineteenth century, and the hotel on their old yard is a long white building under a red tiled roof, arched along the ground floor, with a row of palms between it and the sea wall. Inside it keeps to the old materials: terracotta floors, lime-plastered walls, high wooden ceilings and teak furniture, with punkahs in the lounge. The Armoury, which opens for breakfast, takes its name from the guns hung on its walls.

Recommended for couples, and for anyone who has come to Kochi for its old town and its cooking more than its beach. Children are welcome and babysitting can be arranged, but there is no kids' club. The hotel lends its guests bicycles; the Chinese fishing nets are five minutes' walk along the shore and St Francis Church, built in 1503, about ten, while Mattancherry, for the spice market and Jew Town, is a short drive inland. The pool, facing the harbour, is for the afternoon. At about half past six, depending on the season, the hotel's boat leaves its own jetty for a cruise round Cochin Harbour at sunset, and dinner is at History, whose menu draws on the thirty-two communities who have made Fort Kochi their home: Railway Mutton Curry from the Anglo-Indians, Chuttulli Meen from the Jewish community. By the hotel's account, dolphins play in the water beyond the sea-facing rooms; the ones by the pool are carved in stone, and can be counted on.