Pure shores; travel mauritius; If your dream holiday was shaped by

BARNACLED with five star beauties, Mauritius appeals to Brits, who delight in the world-class service and surreally lovely settings. An astonishing 54,000 of us visited the island in the Indian ocean between January and September this year (12,000 up on 1999). But though standards are uniformly good, each resort has its own character. Here are the best the island has to offer.

BEAU RIVAGE Belle Mare (east)

VIN mousseux on arrival, and Tiffany cutlery in the Asian fusion restaurant Indouchine, hint at Beau Rivage's aspirations. The place looks subtly indigenous. Set in two horseshoes of three-storey blocks, 174 rooms and suites survey the ocean from under sugar-cane thatch. With locally made furniture, the decor's citrussy exuberance has a Home Counties feel which suggests The Pier may have opened a Mauritius branch. Make like David Ginola, and bag the sherbet-hued mighty Maharajah suite, or try the honeymoon suite, with dark wood four poster, whirlpool tub and his 'n' hers Tiffany goo.

The resort ripples with genuine staff enthusiasm. The soaring timber lobby comes complete with gently brimming decorative pool, the Epicure wine shop (where you can buy the sort of carry outs that would make Posh and Becks blush with excess - a bottle of Dom Perignon '92 for #175), not to mention two Med-infused eateries and two bars. Round midnight at Bar Trou La La, honeymooners Victoria and James, hot off the dance floor and sinking lagers, sigh: "We wish we'd discovered this place before."

From #1385 per week through Thomas Cook Holidays (01733 418450)

OBEROI Baie aux Tortues (north west)

IMAGINE a resort designed by Hanna-Barbera and you're there. New arrivals to Mauritius's latest five-star hideaway - a mock village cluster - are greeted with the bizarre spectacle of a custom-built broken aqueduct disgorging its torrents into a lily pond (from which frogs unleash a cacophony of croaking after dark). This sets the tone for Oberoi's wacky persona: dodo bas-reliefs, podgy alligator triplets, spouting fountains, gargantuan poolside torches primed to spew naked flames.

All revelry stops within the 76 compact pavilions, however, where serious imagination has gone into devising a cool, highly original cubist-colonial palette. The bed is a pale-oak monolith with tusk- like posts. The chairs are plantation-style by way of Starck, the bathroom a neo-deco fantasy of contoured exotic wood, lacquer and mother-of-pearl.

Dinner at the barn-size restaurant is splendid: salmon ceviche with citrus fruits and grilled foccacia followed by Australian beef tenderloin with pan-fried duck liver and rich truffle sauce. This level of indulgence is unwise, of course, for anyone determined to bare all in the lapis-lazuli, blue-tiled infinity pools or the crushed-coral beach.

The spa will not be ready until March next year and the muddy grounds have yet to sprout, so at present an unfinished atmosphere reigns.

From #1434 per week through Classic Connection (0870 7519320)

PARADISE COVE Cap Malheureux (north)

SHUNNING the east coast, five-star scrum, Paradise Cove keeps itself to itself, as it has since it opened, eight years ago, amid Day-Glo flora in the island's far north.

Smaller than its closest competitors Royal Palm and Oberoi, the 67 room property curls seductively around the bijou topaz inlet from which it takes its name, sequestered from the open sea. With discreet suites of Raj infusion and a disdain for buffet catering, it's an ideal cocoon for honeymoon consummation, and at least 20 newly wed couples arrive each week. Paradise Cove is also geared towards less intimate but equally explorative exertions such as undersea walks, catamaran voyages and game fishing.

Flaunting the Mauritian vernacular, the place feels becalmed, unfolding through a spreading foyer of boxy claret colonial seating, past a resolutely unfashionable round, turquoise pool, to a strictly residents' only crescent shore. This last is overlooked by the seafood restaurant La Cocteraie, its ingenious trio of intimate dining pavilions for two stilted over the briny.

From #1816 per week through Carrier (01625 547030)

PRINCE MAURICE Poste de Flacq (north-east)

ALL slender Asian furniture, stilts and symmetry, Prince Maurice is a sharp, shrine-like outpost, where piped Pachelbel drifts across an infinity pool intricately tiled to change moods with the sky. This tranquil air is marred sporadically by cozzie-clad, humanity heading for creole sustenance in L'Archipel restaurant.

A new Guerlain spa will be unveiled any day now. Meanwhile, of the 89 suites, the best either face the beach (with cute pewter-tone private pools), or stand on stilts over a fish reserve where, sprawled on your calico deck furniture, you'll find nothing breaks the silence save for a plop or ripple. From #2097 per week through Kuoni (01306 747001).

RESIDENCE Belle Mare (east)

BARELY two years old, this resort steals first prize for first impressions. The hardwood-ribbed ecclesiastical lobby is open-ended to breezes and sapphire sea/sky. A sedate scattering of planters, wicker chairs and Balinese chests evokes mansions of old. Thus the stage is set for 171 rooms and suites rising in two wings from shocks of hibiscus and purple aloe. Unless rich enough for a Royal suite, you should choose ocean front rooms, which have terraces close to sands and iridescent shallows.

Despite a slight squealy-kid element by day, plus bizarre bar entertainment (live banjo renditions of Girl From Ipanema) and erratic hot water in the tub, the Residence is a good resort for romantic retirees and honeymooners. If you belong to either of those groups you should enjoy the personal room butlers, the lily scent of ylang-ylang burned off bedroom bulbs, a shrimp tempura supper at the Plantation eaterie to a surf soundtrack, and superb reflexology in the candlelit Sanctuary spa.

From #1690 per week through Colours of the Indian Ocean (020 8343 3446)

ROYAL PALM Grand Baie (north)

RICHLY understated, Royal Palm's patina belies its mere 15 years. Whitewashed and garlanded with neon fuchsia, 84 terraced rooms and suites end with the private Royal suite, complete with its own pool.

The sea, millpond-still, winks through palms and windsurf sails. Over mahi-mahi fish fingers and Chablis at the Bar-Plage, all leather- lined plantation chairs below a spreading tree, the day winds by like some entrancing silent movie, speedboats furrowing the bay.

In the balmy terrace bar, margaritas slip down as easily as the scarlet sun of dusk. Then, seen later, from the same chairs after dinner (shrimp rogaille, wisps of dill-laden smoked marlin), constellations cartwheel by in the clear night above.

From #2102 per week through Beachcomber Tours (01483 533008)

SAINT GERAN Belle Mare (east)

YOU could replant this 25-year-old classic in Provence, Portofino, Anguilla, Santa Monica - anywhere world class - and it would be at home. It's the holiday hideaway of royalty (the King of Sweden was in residence on this visit) and spangly celebrity types who like its big gestures, as evinced by the chubby, clubby chairs in the vast lobby that stretches to a showy pool scene.

Sun International's #35 million face-lift of its flagship property last year dispensed with everything down to the toothpick holders, demolishing all 150-plus standards in favour of 149 expansive suites. So it's goodbye to chintzy bedspreads, and hello to pale wood headboards, sultry low-lit bathroom marble, capacious glass walk-in showers and whacking wicker furniture. Toss in one sexy new blond- wood Givenchy spa, a Matt Roberts gym and the Starck-designed Alain Ducasse Spoon des Iles restaurant, et voila: a glam grande dame with soul intact, and not too old to kick off her heels for midnight poolside gyrating to live ABBA covers, either.

From #2795 per week through Elegant Resorts (0870 33 33 380)

LE TOUESSROK Trou d'Eau Douce (east) A COMBINATION of damn fine international cooking in seven restaurants, dedicated staff, a busy night scene and paradisical flourishes straight out of a Bounty ad (conical thatch, bridged turquoise pools) have made this whitewashed 200 room hulk-on-a-headland a legend among lounger lizards and their offspring (who get their own fully staffed Sun Kids Club). All the same, busy foyer ceramics and florid room furnishings suggest a resort ripe for refurbishment. Indeed, owner Sun International intends to expand and upgrade 130 rooms (halving the number), while introducing a (mootedly Givenchy) spa and 18-hole golf course on nearby Ile aux Cerfs.

In the meantime, Le Touessrok's unique selling point remains its location: a vast sheet of shimmering aquamarine as far as the eye can see, just beyond the small sandy sweeps seconds from suites. Then there's Ilot Mangenie - a private islet served by resort boat - where champagne brunches and beachy indolence prevail.

From #1625 per week through Sovereign Worldwide (08705 768 373) Whats new Hilton: A 193 suite complex on the west coast at Flic-en- Flac, smartly executed, with expected mod cons plus a Thai restaurant (00 230 403 1000). It will be competition for the ever-popular Sofitel (00 230 453 8700) next door - one of Mauritius's most unusual- looking properties, apparently modelled on a Japanese temple Two luxury resorts for winter season 2001 Follies: A 72 suite hideaway modelled on a governor's Moorish island residence just off the south east coast, near Shandrani resort.

Dinarobin Hotel Golf and Spa: 174 suites in ethnic Mauritian style at Le Morne, beside Le Paradis, with three restaurants, a pool and a health centre.

For information on Follies, the Dinarobin Hotel and more general enquiries about Mauritius, contact the London offices of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority on 00 230 210 1545 Need to know Air Mauritius (020 7434 4375), flies from Heathrow for #680 return in January.

Further information www.cheapflights.com www.mauritius.net

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