The French film star Emmanuelle Béart spent three separate holidays at the Mauritius Oberoi last year, which is about as big an endorsement as any hotel could hope for. If the Royal Palm is a place to see and be seen, The Oberoi is where one heads for privacy and pampering. For, like Béart, it is soigné, seductive and very, very beautiful. All the accommodation is in secluded pavilions and villas, 16 of them with eight-metre slate-lined private swimming pools; even if you do decide to venture out, it is easy to find yourself alone in the hotel's 20 acres of luxuriant, already mature
gardens. Or by one of its two stunning, cobalt-tiled swimming pools.
This felt pretty close to perfection.
Our villa was exquisite: white-wood walls and a steep-pitched ceiling; a vast, modern, limed-oak four-poster with a towering seagrass
headboard; pale-wood African artefacts of a kind that might have inspired Brancusi; and sand-coloured, geometrically patterned rugs. And the bathroom - where to begin? Acres of polished limestone, a sunken bath, mother-of-pearl framed mirrors and more Crabtree & Evelyn aloe vera unguents than we could ever hope to get through.
Outside, in our walled garden, we had a thatched dining pavilion that was so meticulously set when breakfast was delivered that I wished we'd had nothing but room service. Not that the open-sided dining room wasn't a lovely place to eat. We opted for the Indian dishes - a rogan josh and a sort of mutter paneer - which seemed more appropriate to the setting than the tournedos Rossini and sticky toffee pudding that also
featured on the menu (even at night the temperature rarely fell below 25°C). If I had one reservation, it would be that the beach here on the west coast is narrower and less idyllic than those on the north and east of the island. But its proximity to the Mauritian capital, Port Louis, means you're not compelled to eat in every night. And the sunsets make up for just about anything.
CONTACT
The Oberoi, Baie aux Tortues, Pointe-aux-Pimentes (00 230 204 3600; fax: 204 3625; www.oberoihotels.com). Doubles from €700 B&B
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