Viceroy Bali

The highest point at Viceroy Bali has been given to the pool, an infinity pool with a swim-up bar, above the jungle of the Petanu River gorge, which the hotel calls the Valley of the Kings. Each of the forty villas has a heated pool of its own, so the one at the top is for company. Below it the villas step down the ridge in local stone under Balinese thatch, drawn by Ketut Mahardika and still owned by the family that opened it in 2005. The lobby rises in tiers of dark timber and thatch; the villas keep to cream stone and blue mosaic. For a couple, ask for the Elephant Villa, the only one of its kind: in its marble bathroom a carved elephant lowers its trunk over a round bath, and the river can be heard from the valley floor below.

Recommended for couples who want a pool to themselves five minutes' drive from Ubud, and for families who can do without a kids club. There is none, but babysitting is on request, and the Family Deluxe Villa joins two villas by a door between their pool terraces. Parents of young children sign an indemnity at check-in, which with a pool outside every villa is paperwork worth reading. The hotel's car runs free into Ubud from seven in the morning until half past ten at night; Tegalalang's rice terraces are a quarter of an hour by car. Evenings go to Apéritif's degustation menu, in a 1920s Art Deco dining room, and to Pinstripe, where brass lions' heads stud the bar front and the walls are bottle green. By road the airport is anything from forty-five minutes to an hour and a quarter, depending on the traffic, and the hotel keeps a helipad for anyone unwilling to find out which.