Few destinations are as romantic, as exhilarating, as a seaside resort.
There is the exotic factor, too, as familiar architectural styles are rendered in local materials, and horticultural impresarios transform the scrubby maritime landscape into a semitropical arboretum. Then, there is that sense of bravado belonging to communities built close to the ocean, their inhabitants blithely ignoring the fact that a particularly hearty wave could wipe the beach clean. Miami Beach is the American exemplar of this stage-set mentality. Miami Beach is drenched with sunlight so bright that every building, every bicep, seems to exist in cinematic hyper focus. And then there is Gianni Versace, who lives part of the year in a Jazz Age palazzo on the otherwise mercantile main drag, Ocean Drive.