Miami, Florida: all that glitters

If this is as bad as it gets, I can manage. We are sitting outside the Martini Bar of the Raleigh, a South Beach Art Deco landmark, surrounded by palms and lush tropical foliage. Glimmering seductively a few metres away is the sculpted pool made famous by the swimmer-turned-movie star Esther Williams in the 1940s. And a stone's throw beyond the pool and cascading waterfall is the real thing, extending to the horizon - the roaring Atlantic. While Europe is starting to shiver, here in Miami it's all linen, shorts and the merest whiff of cashmere at night. I have to admit that Miami is proving a pleasant surprise. I am here partially under sufferance, you see, accompanying my wife to a 20-year reunion of journalists, veterans of the now defunct Miami News. Like many men, I am not good at sitting-by-the-pool holidays, and prefer my markets to be 1,000-year-old souqs in the Middle East rather than five-year-old malls in Miami. Life is a compromise. Things have moved on a bit since my wife left. These days the little old Jewish ladies, refugees from colder northern climes, are less in evidence on the streets and stoops of South Beach. It's a younger, hipper and flashier set that prowls the streets. Judging by the pimped-up convertibles and growling Mustangs, less is more is an unknown concept in this part of town. Even the mannequins have implants. The menu in Jerry's Deli is enormous and so are the servings. Do hamburgers get any bigger than this? At night South Beach turns itself into an arresting urban film set, a procession of cool curves of Art Deco buildings illuminated by sci-fi force fields of neon lighting in red, blue and yellow. In the '80s, Miami was plagued by drug barons and riots. How times have changed. In recent years sophistication has descended on the city like a pushy gatecrasher in the form of Art Basel Miami Beach, which every December brings in a discerning crowd of luxe-lovers and fashionistas, many of whom take refuge in the discreet, neon-free enclave of the Raleigh. Think Tamara Mellon, the Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez and Karl Lagerfeld, who chose the pool as the setting for the launch of his Chanel Cruise collection a couple of years ago. For a few days we traipse up and down South Beach - miles of sand and shopping - and admire the peerless Art Deco district. These are two of the most ostentatious jewels in Miami's crown - the balmy, almost too-perfect weather is another - that draw in the sun-seeking crowds year after year from all over the world. Sumptuous restaurants, chic boutiques, Latin pizzazz and interminable sun-bathing are all very well if you are my wife, but enough is soon enough. Restlessness strikes the male before you can say "No more shopping, please", and it is time to hit the road. First we drive south in a tropical rainstorm through the Keys to Key Largo, self-proclaimed dive capital of the world but today submerged in low cloud. We toy with the idea of pushing on to make an impromptu Hemingway pilgrimage to Key West, but the rain is too hard and the distance too long, even for Ernest. We retreat north for the main event - my debut in Palm Beach, the dreaded do-nothing part of the visit. In Key Biscayne, a cyclist had a basket sporting the message "Slow down. It ain't the mainland." "Palm Beach is more 'Speed up. You ain't dead yet'," says my wife. Until recently you could observe of Palm Beach that it had gone from old money to new money. The "gilded age" of style and glamour epitomised by the squillionaire railroad tycoon Henry Flagler, friend of John D. Rockefeller and founder of Standard Oil, who first established Palm Beach as a winter resort for the well-heeled in the dying years of the 19th century, were long gone. In its place came a more brash type of billionaire exemplified by Donald Trump, fined by local officials for flying a 4.5m-by-3.6m American flag atop a 26m flagpole in 2007. Today, for those members of the Palm Beach set unlucky or unwise enough to have invested their fortunes with Bernie Madoff, it's less new money than no money.