Plage de Saint Pierre, Reunion

Plage de Saint Pierre is the town beach done with a certain southern style, a neat white strand strung along the seafront of the island's liveliest port. It is not the wild empty crescent some travellers picture when they think of Reunion, and it does not pretend to be. What it offers instead is a groomed, palm lined front where the sand, the promenade, the harbour and the town all run together, the sort of place you swim in the morning, wander the market at midday and take a long table at dusk. As a piece of urban seafront it is genuinely good looking, with the pale lagoon, the leaning palms and the working harbour giving it real character.

The honest read is that you come here for the lagoon swim and the town, in that order, and you should set your expectations to match. A reef offshore shelters the front into a calm, shallow, swimmable lagoon, which makes Saint Pierre one of the easier and safer places to bathe in the south, a real advantage on an island where so much of the coast is closed to swimming. But it is a busy civic beach beside a port, so it is animated rather than serene, and the sand is more promenade than wilderness. If you want untouched and quiet, this is not it, and we would not send a seclusion seeker here.

So our verdict is to use Saint Pierre as the south's most convenient and sociable beach base, a place where a calm family swim, a great Saturday market, the best nightlife on the island and a full town all sit within a few steps of the sand. Swim in the marked lagoon areas in the morning, give the afternoon to the market and the cafes, and take the promenade at golden hour when the harbour lights come on. For a wilder, more photogenic day pair it with Grande Anse along the coast, and let Saint Pierre be the easy, lively, well connected one. Read that way it earns its place.