CHRISTMAS in St Petersburg: miles of golden sand, 10 hours of sunshine a day, the biggest Dalí collection outside Spain and only an hour from Walt Disney World.

Fear not. Russia has not been ravaged overnight by a pre-emptive strike by Mickey Mouse. This is St Petersburg, Florida, and for our winter family holiday it was a joy and a revelation. St Pete, as it is known locally, is the main resort town of a 30-mile stretch of Florida’s west coast, sandwiched between Tampa Bay on its inland side, and the vast blue swath of the Gulf of Mexico that regularly provides sunsets to rival the Caribbean.

Although it has a range of accommodation to cater to all budgets, St Pete is startling for the cultural and child-friendly gems that lurk behind its waterfront. It is also home to a hotel that boasts one of the most spectacular beachfront façades in America; the Don Cesar, a coral-pink palace that overlooks the Gulf of Mexico.

It was our first hotel of three, some five miles up the coast from St Petersburg. Opened in 1928 during the Great Gatsby era, it became the resort for America’s high society, from F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda to a rather murky period when it was reportedly owned by Al Capone.

St Petersburg — so named because one of its founders admired the Russian city — has long been a holiday resort.But I can’t imagine Brighton or Blackpool staging a night-time outdoor performance of The Nutcracker ballet by the local youth drama school, with which we were confronted on our first night in St Pete.

We had just arrived in town from the Don Cesar to stay in the Renaissance Vinoy, St Pete’s salmon-pink resort overlooking Tampa Bay. The Vinoy is only a few minutes’ walk from the town’s central park, which lies along the Bay’s waterfront, where dress rehearsals for The Nutcracker were about to begin. It was dusk. There was a warm breeze, and hundreds of locals, with picnics and children, were sitting on rugs to watch.

The stage was filled with sparkling lights and the score was blasted out by huge speakers. Ben (at 21 months making his ballet debut) was totally entranced, dancing manically at times but not in the style of Margot Fonteyn. It was a wonderful evening.

The next morning, St Pete went mad at the town’s annual Christmas parade. Sun is a constant theme on this stretch of coast. From 1910 until its closure in 1986, the local evening paper used to give away its entire print run every time the sun did not shine. Throughout its history, it was forced to do so only 295 times.

The whole town turned out to watch a vast procession of floats, police motorcycle teams, clowns, vintage cars, blaring and flashing fire engines, farm animals and a very hot Father Christmas.

The children watching this orgy of colour and cars were transfixed for two hours. This was a Christmas that was beginning to turn out rather well.

And the day was still young. A 20-minute walk from our hotel sat the rejuvenated St Pete pier, a protrusion ending with a five-story inverted pyramid filled with shops, a couple of restaurants, two slightly surly pelicans that can be fed by hand, an aquarium and a children’s museum. The aquarium has tanks of weird and wonderful fish, turtles, and lots of well-presented informative boards, where children can explore coral reefs from around the world or learn about sharks. There was also a bar upstairs for me.

The pier also houses the Great Explorations Hands on Museum, a science museum designed to appeal to all ages. The idea is to interact with the exhibits, learning about electricity and chemicals, or, for the parents, to get involved with tennis-ball launchers and giant toy racetracks.

There is also an extraordinary array of museums to entertain parents or older children. We took it in turns to look after Ben and went off to see what the town had to offer, apart from stacks of coffee bars and good restaurants.

My favourite was the Florida International Museum, which held two exhibitions on subjects that have always fascinated me: the life of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But arguably the greatest gem of all is the Salvador Dalí Museum, which houses more than 1,000 paintings from the collection of A. Reynolds Moore, a 1940s American industrialist who befriended Dalí. Free tours take you from Dalí’s early work, his smothered childhood, to some of his greatest surrealist canvases.

Our last hotel was modelled exactly on a British council estate, with long walkways, identical rooms, and creaking lifts, but the views were stunning and the decor more tropical. The Tradewinds resort sits right on the beach, in the over-developed stretch called Gulf Boulevard outside St Pete, but children seem to love it. This may have something to do with its man-made lakes filled with fish, palm trees and numerous swimming pools. It was a comedown after the Don, but Ben loved it. It was from here we went out on a sailing boat to spot dolphins at sunset.

A two-hour flight away, Washington DC was under 2ft of snow. We were sunburned, culturally stuffed, full of seafood, and dolphins were lolloping next to the boat. And not a Mickey Mouse in sight.

Happy Christmas.

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