How true today remains Edmund Waller’s 1645 poem about the island. There are few places in the world where elegance meets tranquillity so effortlessly as in Bermuda. It really is a refined escape for the discerning traveller. With its pastel-coloured buildings, pink-sand beaches, and an unhurried way of life, this island offered me a luxurious retreat steeped in charm and sophistication. This is not the Caribbean, nor does it try to be. Bermuda has carved its own unique identity and it wears its luxury like a bespoke linen suit: gracefully and with poise, or rather a pair of its Bermuda shorts.

Bermuda is Britain’s oldest British colony (since 1684) and is technically a ‘self-governed British Overseas Territory’. Named after the 1503 Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez, it’s supposedly the inspiration for Shakespeare’s The Tempest. There’s an evident pride and affection with the motherland with its black taxis and red post-boxes and telephone booths.

There’s a Royal Bermuda Regiment for pageants; old families like Gibbons and Tucker persist as do place names like Somerset, Warwick, and Devonshire.

Touching down at L.F. Wade International Airport is an experience unlike most tropical arrivals. A calm, almost serene, efficiency greeted me. The airport is small but immaculate, and the immigration officers seemed to welcome me not with hurried glances but with sincere, polite conversation and genuine smiles. This introduction set the tone. It encapsulated what Bermuda truly is: an island that values quality over quantity, and grace over grandeur.

A short drive from the airport took me through winding roads bordered by fragrant frangipani, oleander, and hibiscus. The homes are painted in their pastel hues with crisp white roofs that are designed to collect rainwater. There is an almost cinematic stillness to Bermuda’s landscapes with their tidy golf courses, turquoise waters, and their elegant stone walls covered in bougainvillea. The whole stretch, resembling a fishhook, is connected by a series of causeways and bridges which spread out across the nine parishes.

There are typically a rather spoiling 300 days of guaranteed sun a year in what amounts to a mild climate with its subtropical waters. The locals joke about “all four seasons in one day” in low season but it’s partially because the Gulf Stream effectively only grants to Bermuda two real seasons. There’s Spring, which runs from December to March, and which is both ‘t-shirt’ warm and free of mosquitos when temperatures can get as high as 20°C. And there’s the summer, which is defined as from April to October, when things can hot up as much as 30°C.

Journalists often go to town about the colour of the sand and sea but here it really is something special. The waters are stunning and typically rock-free with nowhere more than a mile or so from the sea. Across the island there’s a speed limit of 20mph which is very relaxing and, from the top (the airport) to the toe (the Dockyard), it takes less than an hour. It is sufficiently small, being a mere 21 miles long and two miles across, that I was able, in my ten days, to explore the whole island. So welcoming and clean. The vibe so chilled and breezy. I found that of all the guidebooks on offer those that gave me all I wanted were both the Frommer’s and Fodor’s versions. I must confess that Bermuda has an expensive economy. But all is abundant, bountiful, and beautiful. Sunsets, rainbows, and clear galaxies. Bungalows, beaches, and boats. Coral reefs, cays, caves, and coves, and the beaches of Horseshoe Bay and Elbow Beach are especially divine.

It always amazes me how birds got to this mid-Atlantic resting post. The island boasts lovely yellow-breasted Great Kiskadee, starlings, herons, and white-tailed tropicbirds and smaller ones flit and flutter into many a breakfast room. Indigenous too are lobsters, loquats, onions. Popular Sunday lunch is codfish and potatoes, and for tipples: ‘Rum Swizzle’ and ‘Dark and Stormy’ cocktail. Bermudiana is the national flower and bougainvillea, oleander, and hibiscus abound. Mangrove trees have their gorgeous leaves of ever-changing colour, the evergreens are quirkily-shaped and all around the island is limestone: rich and fertile in its vivid, brown soil.

Somewhat bizarrely though there are a plethora of guest houses liberally sprinkled generally across the shorelines of the island whereas there are only a handful, indeed a dozen hotels. For the traveller seeking luxury, I found that Bermuda’s offering of accommodation does not disappoint. Top of the pile, in both style and expense, is Fairmont Hamilton Princess & Beach Club: a massive pink edifice resplendently overlooking the harbour of the capital, with its very own shopping mall and even boasting its own art gallery (exhibiting Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and Damien Hirst). It’s the crown jewel of Hamilton and known affectionately as the ‘Pink Palace.’ Originally opened in 1885, it exudes colonial grandeur but comes with a modern twist. The lobby, adorned with fresh orchids and classic artworks, opens onto a stunning harbour view where yachts gently sway under the sun. Rooms are spacious with plush bedding, marble bathrooms, and private balconies.

My favourite was Cambridge Beaches Resort, at the Dockyard end of the island, with its glorious setting of beaches, capes, and coves. It’s timeless and reassuringly British with its croquet lawn and tasteful furnishing. Next in line of preference are the two hotels: Royal Palms and Coco Reef. The former, in the capital’s suburbs, again harks back to the good old days with its gorgeous gardens and wonderfully renovated 19th century manor houses. The latter, with its enormous octagonally domed lobby, provides an idyllic seaside experience. Situated atop limestone cliffs in Southampton Parish, it has the best location on the island: at one end of Elbow Beach, the most divine stretch of pure pink sand and turquoise water with sweeping views of the Atlantic. Utter heaven.

Mid-market are Grotto Bay, near the airport and with its very own subterranean spa, positioned within a cool crystal cave perfectly offset by their hot stone massages. And there’s Pompano Beach Club which is beautifully positioned by a golf course that is wonderful to walk around and it also owns the widest expanse of shallow azure water on the island. Here I was to experience a baptismal moment, with the therapeutic and gradual process of wading out 400 yards at low tide still only waist-deep to the deeper water. And for a pair of hotels that are closer in vibe to the guest houses: Willowbank Resort, up in Somerset Village, and Newstead Belmont Hills that looks out across the estuary at the buildings of Hamilton. Both have all the basics and wonderful views though they are spared some of the more luxurious trappings I enjoyed elsewhere.

As for the restaurants, they are nearly all an utter delight with expansive menus and generous helpings. Naturally, fresh fish command the agenda with the ‘catch of the day’ being red hind, rockfish, wahoo, mahi mahi, tuna, Atlantic salmon or swordfish. In town you can take your pick from Ascots restaurant, within the Royal Palms hotel, named after the racecourse and extremely plush with opera music wafting across the ceiling’s equine fresco. Definitely somewhere for a treat or celebration. Huckleberry at the Rosedon Hotel is set on two floors. It’s a fabulously solid white building: a traditional home with a gorgeous pale blue décor and with a menu that proudly boasts ‘sea and farm to table’.

The Cloud at the Waterfront sports the natural and neutral look allowing all the colour to come from the offerings on the health-conscious plate. Downtown Hamilton is a ghost town at weekends and, right by the Anglican cathedral, is the all-day bistro Devil’s Isle which is busy, as its menu declares, “building healthier communities with nutritional choices”. Sitting upright in my green comfy banquette, I tucked into my grilled shrimp salad before the freshest of tuna tartare. As for Harbourfront, it is positioned just on the town’s limit beside the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. With a menu that was part local, part Continental and part sushi I was particularly taken with the service which was both attentive and personal. All seemed breezy and light, in parallel with the boats in the cove opposite, tinkering in the wind. Here, I had the very best salad of lobster, mango, avocado, and onion as an appetiser that I have ever experienced.

I took a boat trip with Captain Ray. His mantra is “adventure to remember” and my experience aboard with his Mona Lisa Cruises definitely lived up to this declaration. For I was allowed on these bespoke trips to witness whatever I wanted: subject, of course, to the weather conditions. I was taken around Scaur Bay, and then beneath Somerset Bridge, famously considered the world’s smallest drawbridge, before entering the Great Sound where we pottered about around the islands of Somerset. We then sailed in and around Mangrove Bay, and on past Cambridge Beaches Hotel right by where David Bowie used to take a holiday villa. Finally we reached the shipwreck of HMS Vixen supposedly at the very tip of the Bermuda Triangle before, luckily you might say, I was returned safely back!

I recommend hiring a car. They tend to be electric and mine came from Rugged Rentals whose boss is the engaging TJ and whose fleet of 30 cars is on offer from his rental cabin located near the airport, though there is about to be an office in Hamilton. It really is the best way to experience the island. Such a relaxing and fun way to get about.

The white-tombed cemeteries lie beneath miniature-spired churches of all denominations and there’s even ‘the pink church’. Indeed pink pervades everywhere in the most singular and brilliant fashion. It is there in the sand, and in the houses, and of course in all the ephemera and merchandise. It’s Bermuda’s signature. Along with the shorts which come just below the knee and are worn both formally and informally along with a blue blazer and cravat. They could and should have filmed Barbie here. Perhaps native Michael Douglas should have insisted. Such is this play on sunset colours with its variants of peach, terracotta, salmon, and blush pink. I must go back whenever but soon.