Villa Antonia

The rooms surprise people in the best way. Guests describe them as spacious and clean, with an enormous bed praised for its comfortable mattress and pillows, and a huge bathroom that comes up repeatedly. There are both fans and air conditioning to suit every taste, and the whole place is thoughtfully put together, comfortable and welcoming, so it feels like somewhere to properly settle rather than just pass through.

Breakfast and the terrace are a highlight in themselves. There is a lovely large terrace, shaded for cool morning coffee even on hot days, where guests enjoy fresh fruit, toast and eggs and a fresh juice more than one described as from heaven. The breakfast is home-cooked, abundant and tasty, and the owner is a genuinely good cook who will also prepare dinner on request, a real bonus on an island with limited dining.

The hosting seals the near-perfect score. Andrea and Babett greet arrivals with fresh juice, help guests rent bicycles to explore, and Babett cleans and makes up the room every single day. Reviewers describe endlessly kind, helpful hosts who make everyone feel completely at home, and it is that care, as much as the spacious rooms and the wonderful breakfast, that earns Villa Antonia its 4.9 and the affection that runs through every review.

Anse Réunion is the green, settled stretch of La Digue just south of the ferry village of La Passe, a leafy neighbourhood of gardens and small guesthouses that makes an easy, central base for exploring the island. It sits within a short walk or cycle of the old L'Union Estate, with its coconut plantation, giant tortoises and the path down to Anse Source d'Argent, the pink-granite beach that appears on so many postcards, while La Passe, back the other way, has the shops, bakeries, restaurants and bike-hire stands. From here the whole car-free island is yours to explore at a gentle, pedal-powered pace, from the calm western beaches to the wild sweep of Grand Anse in the east, and the Praslin ferry takes about fifteen minutes.