Castles in Paradise Villa Resort

The bay is the view here. Every balcony at Castles in Paradise Villa Resort looks out over the still water of Savannes Bay, with Honeymoon Bay and the open Atlantic beyond. The resort sits at Savannes Bay in Vieux Fort, in the south of St Lucia, a cluster of low villas and apartments set among tropical gardens kept trim by regular groundskeeping. Rooms range from one-bedroom apartments sleeping two to a three-bedroom villa with its own private pool; the rest share a resort pool a few steps from the front door, set inside the same landscaped grounds. Interiors are straightforward: air conditioning, Wi-Fi, cable television, a fully equipped kitchen. Two-bedroom villas add a laundry room and a powder room, and two of them extend onto a roof deck for a wider angle on the bay. Each unit gives onto a private balcony or terrace, the obvious spot for a coffee before the heat sets in. Housekeeping calls five days a week. It is a compact, self-catering base rather than a full-service hotel, better suited to travellers who want a kitchen and a quiet corner of the south coast than to those chasing amenities. Restaurants sit a short drive away for evenings out. Vieux Fort and Hewanorra airport are both close by, making it a practical first or last stop on a St Lucia itinerary.