Bora Bora in 5 days

The island's main public beach, two kilometres of white sand shelving so gently you wade a hundred metres before the water reaches your waist.

The island's second summit, 661 metres, is the only one open to walkers: three hours up through forest, then a ridge with fixed ropes.

The 32 km coast road is almost flat, with one climb at Fitiiu Point, and passes Vaitape, Faanui and Anau and their bays.

The 727-metre peak, remains of a volcano extinct for some three million years, has sheer walls closed to walkers; admire it from the lagoon.

On a shallow lagoon sandbank, stingrays glide past your legs while blacktip reef sharks keep their distance; lemon sharks gather beyond the reef.

Relics of Operation Bobcat in 1942, when about 5,000 US troops built a supply base here and set eight naval guns on the heights.

The island's most important marae, on Faanui Bay, a platform of upright coral slabs about forty metres long, restored in 1968.

A shallow coral plateau in the south-east of the lagoon, one to two metres down, with butterflyfish, parrotfish, moray eels and sometimes an eagle ray.