The Oberoi Beach Resort, Mauritius

The Dutch called it Schildpad Baai, Turtle Bay, and the French put it to work: under Governor Mahé de La Bourdonnais its shore held an iron foundry and a gunpowder factory, supplying Port Louis and its harbour. The Oberoi, open since 2000, has an 18th-century French colonial monument of its own in the grounds, and serves dinner in it. Lek Bunnag drew single-storey pavilions and villas under steep thatch, and Bill Bensley laid out 20 acres of garden round them, behind 600 metres of white sand, so nothing is stacked on anything else. The stonework is dark volcanic rock, a lily pond has a thatched tower pouring a waterfall into it, and the villas sit behind walls of their own, many round a private pool lined in green stone. Inside, a four-poster has a headboard of woven rush, and glass doors open straight onto the terrace.

Recommended for couples who want a wall round their pool, and for families, who get the Hub: a kids club for 4 to 12, free and open from nine to four every day, with a heated pool and a tree house. Grown-ups keep the Turtle Bay pool to themselves. The bay is a marine park, and from the boat house the glass-bottom boat and the snorkelling trips to the reef are included. Pamplemousses, for the botanical garden, is fourteen minutes' drive. The bay faces west, into the sunset. Dinner might be Creole in the Gunpowder Room, adults only, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or at weekends the Herb Trail's four courses, slow-cooked in an underground fire pit in the herb garden. Otherwise The Restaurant lights torches round its reflection pool, and across the water come the lights of Port Louis, which the bay once kept in gunpowder.