The Mediterranean

• On the Ship where every one knows your name
• Paris is perfect, if you ditch the men! - France
• An appetite of Venice - Italy
• Party time in Tapas Central - Spain
• Croatia uncovered! - Croatia
• I'll have the state room please - Portugal
• Seeking Spain's hidden gems - Spain
• Let's tryst again - Sicily
• Dallying with Delia - Majorca
• Wax gets the works - Majorca
• B&B at the Palace - Italy
• The Golden Oldie - France
• Amazing Amalfi - Italy
• Follow the Stars - Europe
• Tuscany - Italy
• Mediterranean Cruise - Europe

STANDING atop a cliff on Corsica’s most northerly point, there were still patches of snow on the highest mountains. The scent was delicious: lavender, rosemary, wild thyme and myrtle.

Some way below, beyond the honey-coloured bastions of the old fishing village of Calvi, a graceful, four-masted square rigger bobbed up and down in the sunshine.

This was the Star Flyer, my plushy home for a few days. I was on a Mediterranean mini-break, but it was all too easy to imagine that this tall ship was my private yacht. Although I wander around the ship in flip-flops and don’t dress especially smartly for dinner, the itinerary oozes glamour: from Cannes to Monte Carlo, Calvi and Portofino.

The ship attracts attention wherever we go, even in the port of Cannes, where it sits, regally, amid millionaires’ toys with helicopters perched on their upper decks. Built in 1991, Star Flyer is a replica of the sleek, 19th-century tea clippers that were known for their grace and speed, before steam consigned them to history.

The ship attracts attention wherever we go

The ship has a staggering 36,000 sq ft of sails and much of the space on the teak decks is dedicated to storing, fixing and operating all 16 of them – huge coils of ropes stacked high, polished brass winches and hundreds of lines connected to four towering masts.

Not that you need to know how to sail. We tried rope hauling one afternoon, but generally, most passengers preferred to sip a cocktail while watching the deckhands do the work.

We’d set out from Cannes late on the first night. Passengers gathered on the foredeck as the anchor was raised with a long, clanking sound, winches started to creak and sails unfurled as the haunting pulse of Vangelis’s 1492, Conquest Of Paradise echoed across the deck.

This is Star Clippers’ sailing theme music.

It brings a tear to most eyes. I’d been worried about getting seasick, but the gentle rocking of the ship (and a few sea breeze cocktails) sent me happily to sleep. The beds on Star Flyer are big and comfortable.

When I woke the next day, we were cruising slowly off the coast of Monaco, its belle epoque buildings and megabucks apartment blocks crammed tightly against the mountains of the Cote d’Azur.

Something is laid on every night

In port, everybody scattered, some to museums, some to the royal palace, others to the nearby villages of Eze and Villefranche.

A few of us strolled up to Casino Square to watch the ludicrously rich circling in scarlet, black or yellow Ferraris as we sipped 10-euro espressos. I spent the afternoon collapsed on a sunlounger on deck, gazing up through a cat’s cradle of ropes and lines – and prepared for the crossing to Corsica.

Despite this blissful lethargy, we made the most of the ship’s somewhat home-spun nightlife. Something is laid on every night – a crew fashion show one night, selling nautically themed clothing from the ship’s Sloop Shop, all of it bearing the Star Clippers logo (a lot of the repeat passengers wore this as a kind of ‘I’ve done this before’ badge); a ferociously competitive music quiz and a talent show, where crew and passengers could strut their stuff, the crew rather better than the passengers.

All this takes place in the outdoor Tropical Bar, the hub of drinking, socialising and idle gossip with the jolly bartenders. We danced to cheesy disco music. Doing the macarena on a gently pitching and rolling ship is quite something.

It feels like flying

There are two small plunge pools and plenty of sunloungers, but if the sea isn’t too rough, you can clamber into the giant nets either side of the bowsprit (the pointy bit at the front).

Lying in the net was not especially comfortable and you get up with a criss-cross rope pattern embedded in your back, but it feels like flying, looking straight down at the water, watching out for leaping fish and dolphins. We even scaled the narrow rope ladder up the mast to the crow’s nest, for eagle views across the decks below.

Our final port of call was good looking Portofino. Ochre and terracotta houses cram around a tiny, rectangular port, stuffed to the gills with expensive yachts and designer shops.

The hills of the Ligurian Riviera rise behind the village, thick with umbrella pines and cypress trees. There’s multimillionaire Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s summer villa and, in the water, the gin palace belonging to fashion designer Roberto Cavalli.

I was only a temporary participant in this glittering lifestyle – but it was worrying how quickly I developed a taste for it.