Palais de Mahe

Fifty metres from the Bay of Bengal, on rue de Bussy in the French Quarter, Palais de Mahe does Pondicherry the way the town deserves: a French-mansion build of high ceilings, traditional roof beams, arched doorways, colonnades and ochre yellow walls, run by CGH Earth, whose quiet-sustainability habits run right through the place. Fabrics, handmade paper, soaps and decor are sourced from a self-imposed 50-mile radius, and the poolside Earth Cafe pours coffee grown in the South Indian hills and roasted half an hour away.

Punkahs and the courtyard pool

Rooms come in three categories, in the hotel's Franco-Tamil naming: Mahe Chambre, Palais Chambre Deluxe, and the Deluxe with its own private terrace. Each pairs air-conditioning with an electric punkah, which sets the tone of the place: modern comfort, colonial manners. The swimming pool sits in the courtyard with the colonnades around it, and an in-house Ayurveda centre does herbal massages and therapies.

The chefs buy the day's seafood straight off the incoming boats.

The rooftop restaurant, Les Alizes, looks over White Town and serves what CGH calls Progressive Global Cuisine, with recipes planned around the seafood the chefs pick themselves from the incoming boats at the nearby harbour. A cocktail bar covers the sundowner shift; you can also join the chef on a tour of the local market before dinner shapes itself.

White Town on foot, the coast by sail

The 1.5 km Promenade is around the corner, and the hotel's excursion list reads like the Pondicherry syllabus: heritage walks, cycle-rickshaw rides, Auroville, Eden Beach, sailing on the Bay of Bengal and by the mangroves, and the run out to Chidambaram Temple and the Pichavaram mangrove forest. Chennai's airport is the gateway, around a three-hour drive; Bangalore is a seven-hour haul, which is why Pondicherry pairs best with a Tamil Nadu circuit rather than a dash.