Looking for a place with walkable city with cute shops and stuff but also next to a beach

hey all, looking for some recommendations. I want a nice relaxing beach but at the same time, i want a nice cool walkable place (kinda florence vibe) for me and my soon to be wife. We have already been to rome/venice/florence/milan.

We also live in north carolina and want it to be maybe 12 hours flight at most, but are a little flexible (we don’t like flying that much).

We are looking to spend 8 days there, open to a resort move

Some ideas we had:

• Canary islands: not sure about the city aspect, views look beautiful

• One of the green islands (crete rhodes mykonos, santorini, etc): sounds perfect, nervous to popular

• aruba: looks beautiful, not sure if there’s any city

• saint lucia’s: same thing, also looks super flat and boring?

Thanks!