Xanadu Luxury Villas & Retreat

Coleridge's Kubla Khan decreed a single pleasure-dome in Xanadu. The Xanadu at Dongwe, on Zanzibar's south-east coast, has nine, one over each of its freestanding villas: coral stone, whitewashed, rising over a terrace and a pool of its own, with the Indian Ocean a few steps away across the sand. The villas ring a shared pool in a tropical garden, and round it is Ganda, the restaurant, under a giant makuti roof of palm thatch. The villas' names are Swahili, and most of them look up: Nyota is stars, Mbingu the heavens. Kimwondo, the shooting star, is the architect's favourite, a garden villa with its pool on the roof and a table beside it for dinner under the real thing.

Recommended for couples who want a beach and a butler to themselves, and for families with children of five or over, who belong in Mlima or Korongo, the two-bedroom garden villas, each with a big living and dining room. Meals and drinks are included down to the house wine and the local beer, with cocktails and the better bottles extra. The kitchen has eight chefs. There are nine villas. Breakfast goes wherever it is sent, the beach and the yoga deck included, and the Kiota Spa is on the sand as well, with a deck for treatments in the sea breeze. The snorkelling starts off the villas' own beach, a dhow sails round Michamvi Bay for the sunset, and the red colobus monkeys of Jozani are about 15km by road. Stone Town is an hour's drive, a long way to go for dinner when the kitchen will lay a table on a roof.