Florida's most vibrant city, Miami, combines the glamour of LA with the brashness of Vegas and thrills of New York, finds GRANT FELLER

I KNOW it was slightly childish, possibly even a little vain, but I simply had to strip off. Well it was only my T-shirt and at 8am there weren't too many people around - save a few impossibly fit seniors and some late-night revellers who hadn't quite made it home - likely to be stunned into silence by my lumpy torso.

Miami, Florida is the embodiment of "anything goes" and so an early-morning jog along the Miami Beach boardwalk, the baking sun already beating down, made me feel like a bit-part player in an episode of Miami Vice with detectives Crockett and Tubbs weaving their way through the Adonis-like creatures along the beach after an impeccably suited baddie.

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That's the thing about Miami - and it hits you the moment you join the phalanx of shiny black BMWs and Porsches on the main drag, Ocean Drive. It's almost a fantasy, a place that Hollywood couldn't improve upon or even make up. It's got the city thrills of New York, the brashness of Vegas and the glamour of LA but with the most spectacularly vibrant beach.

The perfect way to start the fantasy is on Miami Beach's South Beach, an impossibly pristine 10-mile stretch of sand overlooked by some of the world's most outrageously designed art deco homes and expensively attired hotels such as the massive newly refurbished Fontainbleau Miami Beach and the historic, boutique hotel The Betsy. Right in the heart of it is The Ritz-Carlton, a place where it seems everyone knows your name before you have even checked in.
The service is slick and the hotel pool at the back is the perfect place to watch a very rarified world go by - 6ft models with gold-encrusted boyfriends and middle-aged women glugging champagne.

The rooms are incredibly spacious, especially the bathrooms, and the bedding sumptuous.

There are three restaurants serving a variety of cuisines such as tapas and seafood.

Without doubt our favourite was the DiLido beach club, a fantastic beachfront restaurant overlooking the ocean.
Tough as it was, we managed to tear ourselves away to explore the refurbished Downtown area, a 15-minute ride from Miami Beach itself.

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Miami life tends to revolve around the palm tree-lined beach areas and this quarter directly across the water was somewhat unloved. However, the massive property growth and build up of infrastructure has turned this anonymous and rather lonely area into a sleek, colourful, cultural hub.

This is particularly evident around Bayside Marketplace, a Bohemian enclave home to designer boutiques, restaurants and a healthy smattering of tacky tourist shops.

Nearby there are two family-friendly museums - the Miami Art Museum, with enormous rooms staging plenty of high-calibre travelling exhibitions; the superb Historical Museum of Southern Florida which graphically explores how this once sleepy state, founded by early Indians and Cuban exiles, exploded on to the scene in the Prohibition era.

Miami then became America's fastest-growing and most violent city on the back of the Eighties cocaine wars.
For a real cultural buzz, try to grab tickets for a show at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, one of the showpieces of this now vibrant district housed in a stunning glass and limestone temple, home to the Florida Grand Opera and Miami City ballet.

Sprinkled around the edges of Downtown, particularly off Flagler Street, are a few decent restaurants. Nightlife tends to centre on the South Beach area, though in Downtown you can enjoy a wonderful view of the water at Il Gabbiano, a swish Italian with prices to match. The Prime Blue Grille closer to the Bayside docks is a reassuringly old-fashioned steakhouse with suitably macho portions.

The beach is where you want to be however morning, noon and especially night, when the neon-lit streets come alive and the garish, brash nature of this inexhaustibly cool city is best enjoyed.

THE KNOWLEDGE:
Virgin Holidays (0844 557 3859/www.virginholidays.co.uk offers 10 nights at the The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach from £1,439pp (two sharing), room only. Price includes return flights from Heathrow to Miami and 10 days car hire. Greater Miami CVB: 0207 978 5233/www.miamiandbeaches.com