Magical Martinique...

Our next Caribbean island was Martinique, only a short hop from Castries in St. Lucia on a LIAT Airways Dash-8. It's a short hop to a different world!

Martinique is sooo French! It is legally a department of France (since 1946). Every day we see big jets bringing French people in from Paris - the flight time is about 10hr - and they obviously feel very at home here. The currency is the Euro. The main difference is the weather - Martinique is a Caribbean island, and so far we have found them to be hot, humid and prone to brief tropical showers. We're not sure if that is typical for February, but that's what we are getting every day! Whereas St. Lucia's tourists were predominantly Americans, we haven't seen a single American here. The tourists are 95% French with a smattering of Brits, Germans and Spanish. We did bump into an English sailor, cruising the Caribbean on his 30ft cat, in a bar while his wife had her hair done.

Arrival here could not have been more different either. Immigration, baggage collection and customs were slow and bureaucratic at St. Lucia, but from landing at La Lementin airport to getting into the taxi our hotel had organised for us took less than 10 minutes, no kidding! One quick look at our passports, and the customs guy asked us where we were coming from and waved us through.

We are staying at Hotel de la Pagerie in Pointe du Bout which is in les Trois Ilets part of the island. This was a great choice, including the location, by our Caribbean advisor, Laura. It's well out of Fort-De-France, the capital, but is at the centre of an area very popular with tourists, so we have lots of shops to look at and dining choices to make. The hotel is pretty large and is ultra-modern. Like many, it is built around a central swimming pool, and has its own restaurant, bar and poolside cafe.

The entrance to the little harbour at Pointe du Bout.

One of the most pleasant surprises about La Pagerie is the live music we have been able to enjoy in the lobby area on Friday & Saturday evenings. This is very popular amongst the guests and certainly adds to their bar takings! The lobby is quite open to the street, and many people also watched and listened to the acts from outside. Clearly popular across town! One of the acts was a fascinating and very enjoyable cultural Creole dance and music performance by a large company of about a dozen or more.

Accordian player and MC of the great Creole performance at the Hotel de la Pagerie.

In the lobby of the Hotel de la Pagerie, this Creole performer participated in a stunning cultural exhbition. The entire population of the hotel, and more, enjoyed a wonderful performance.

Pointe du Bout has a spectacular view of the nation's capital Fort-De-France across the Baie, and you can make the journey by ferry in only about 10 minutes. We knew from our taxi ride in from the airport that this would be a lot faster and more convenient than driving. The ferry ride should not make you think of Sydney Harbour. We went over on the "Mona" and it was rough and wet! Our ride back was on a larger ferry and was much more comfortable and dry, although we were worried - we realised that we didn't know where we had come from, and there were three destinations to choose from. Hurried, fractured language conversations with people on the wharf made us feel a bit better, and in the end, we did arrive at the right place. We also noted that the ferries did not run to their signposted timetables, and for some reason they run a reduced schedule on Saturday and not at all on Sunday!

The ferry between Pointe du Bout and Fort-De-France lets a lot of water in on the paying customers.

In the capital, we tried to visit Fort St.Louis, easily the most dominant feature on the harbour skyline. It turned out to be a working naval base, and doesn't open for tours. This fort dates back to 1640, when the French were using the local Carib population as slave labour in sugar plantations. The British occupied Martinique for 20 years around 1800, conveniently saving the island from the horrors of the French Revolution. The French took power again, and there is no sign of any Britishness here. The capital used to be St. Pierre on the north-west coast but it was entirely destroyed and everyone killed by a volcanic eruption of Montagne Pelee in 1902.

A remnant of Fort St. Louis at Fort-De-France.

The colourful historical centre of Fort-De-Paris as seen from the harbour. The steeple of Cathedrale St-Louis is the tallest building.

We spent a couple of hours in the narrow CBD streets of Fort-De-France, found a nice deli for lunch, and looked at the shops, before we retreated to Pointe du Bout. The large Cathedrale St.Louis which dominates the CBD skyline seems surprisingly run down, and we wondered why.

Getting a rental car was a drama in itself. Our earely advice was that there were numerous agencies near our hotel, but a day or so before we arrived in Martinique our agent told us that they had no availability. Accordingly, she reserved one for us at the airport. We really didn't want to catch a taxi back to the airport, so from Pointe du Bout, we confirmed what the agent said - we tried Budget, Hertz, Europcar and Jumbo and got the same response, "nothing for a week or more". So, on the third day, we went back to the airport to pick up a Budget car - the agent there asked us didn't we know there was a Budget office opposite our hotel. Obviously, they don't communicate with each other, and they certainly don't deliver cars to each others' locations.

Our car was a tiny Opel Corsa. They don't waste cute little Renaults or Peugeots on tourists in Martinique! It was a two door manual, but it did the trick, and handled Martinique's roads with aplomb. Our first outing in it was to head north and follow the Route de la Trace desrcibed by Lonely Planet as the country's 'must-do' drive. The road was originally cut by the Jesuits in the 17thC and is a particularly scenic inland mountainous road, now the N3. The hardest part was finding it, even after taking the N3 exit of Martinique's only freeway in the middle of Fort-De-France. Massive roadworks destroyed all signage, but we eventually found the right way, in the midst of very heavy traffic.

Our bright white rental Opel Corsa.

The N3 climbs steeply out of the capital, and passes a wonderful small-sized replica of Paris' Sacre-Coeur. We parked here to take a photo, and were lucky enough to stumble across a wedding taking place. We watched it for a moment, but scarpered quickly to beat everyone's cars back onto the road.

Sacre-Coeur de Balata, where we discovered a wedding in progress.

Continuing north, from here on the city retreats and the road twists its way through mountains and lush countryside. We passed the cloud-shrouded twin peaks of the Pitons du Carbet and made it to Le Morne Rouge, apparently Martinique's highest town (450m). Also, apparently, this town was partly destroyed by a separated volcanic eruption to the one mentioned above. We negotiated a baguette sandwich in this town and enjoyed a pleasant lunch. There is a lookout in Le Morne Rouge with a fine view of the Caribbean Sea to the west, and only a few km further along the N3, there are spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

Clouds clinging to the tops of les Pitons du Carbet, as seen from the Botanic Garden near Balata.

At the Site de l'Alma, a river passes under a bridge on the N3.

Restaurant, sculpture and church at the high town of Le Morne-Rouge.

From up there, we finished the N3 and returned to sea level and headed back south down the N1 through a number of coastal towns, like Le Lorrain, Marigot, Sainte Marie and Le Robert. These all have black-sanded beaches, and being exposed to the Atlantic, have rough surfs making them unsuitable for the calm water loving French tourists and their resorts. These towns were pretty but seemed to be more associated with fishing than tourism. The traffic on the N1 was also much heavier than we found it on the mountainous N3.

Real surf pounds black beaches on the North Atlantic coast of Martinique, this scene near the town of Le Lorrain.

On this trip, we bypassed the town of La Trinite from which there is a narrow peninsula poking into the Atlantic. It looks interesting, but would have taken us hours to go into and retreat from. Returning to Pointe du Bout, we picked up another hitch-hiker, but this time we actually knew him! He was the barman from Le Bistro d'en Face on the way to work, and we recognised him from a night or two previously when we had a few rum cocktails there. This young fellow, about 20, surprisingly spoke no English, and what's worse, he missed calling us to take the hardest to find intersection on the way back. We cheerily told him that navigation was why we picked him up, but he didn't understand a word of either our English or our French.

Our local bar at Le Bistrot d'En Face as seen at sunset from our hotel room.

Speaking of rum, we went out of our way to sample the signature cocktails of Martinique, including at the d'en Face bar. A ti punch is pretty simple - it's straight rum with some palm sugar thrown in, but not dissolved, and a slice of lime. It comes with a spoon so you can squeeze the lime and stir the sugar. It is a revolting drink of fire-water! Clare only had one during the week here, Mike managed two, but has sworn off rum forever! A more pallatable cocktail is the Planteur which has fruit juice added to disguise the rum.

Two ti-punches, now consumed, are absolute fire-water, maybe lighter fluid?

The "best" beaches and hence the most tourist resorts are on the southern half of Martinique, which includes our part, les Trois Ilets. There we tried Anse Mitan as well as coming across private beach restrictions again. The best part of the beach at Point du Bout is owned by the plush Hotel Bakoua, and they charge E10 to use it. Next door though, is a highly developed couple of bays and groynes that look as though they were sculpted by a huge, now defunct, hotel (we called it the Club Med). Because it's defunct (and populated by squatters) the beach is now "public" and there's also some parking to be had. These beaches were quite pleasant and popular. If that site gets redeveloped, we image the beach there will be privatised.

This public beach at Pointe du Bout looks as though it was originally landscaped by a now defunct resort.

Relaxing on the beach at Anse Mitan.

Crowded beach near the end of the day and Anse Mitan at Pointe du Bout.

We did a day trip in our little Opel to see the rest of the south. We called in at l'Anse a l'Ane and Grand Anse. By then we surmised that Martinique beaches are mediocre at best - they are pretty clean (but the water tastes of things other than salt) but the water is not the colour we expect of the Caribbean. What's more, parking is nigh impossible - we spent way too much time looking for a spot at several Anses, only to find the beach fairly unappealing. There is no surf, we understand that the French seem to like standing around in calm waters, but the sand is grey and coarse (lots of broken coral), and the water is barely blue. There is also the attraction that at many beaches you can easily rent a bed and an umbrella, as well as a kayak and a jet ski. Most importantly, you can get a meal and a drink right on the beach. The French give up a lot to be amongst there own, and to be in a familiar environment.

Scene on many of the beaches at Les Anses-d'Arlet on Martinique's south western peninsula.

As we wound further round the coast, we passed Le Diamant but there were real waves here, and thus the beach was not so popular, and parking was easier. Then through Ste-Luce (but we had given up on the beaches by now), and through the big and crowded town of Marin with a huge marina, on the way to a very cute and touristy town of Ste-Anne. This is where we decided to call it quits and head for home after having a delicious fresh fruit cocktail from a roadside stand.

The town and marina at Le Marin, and unfortunately crowded town that you have to drive through to get to Ste-Anne.

Martinique does not seem to be a destination for the young and beautiful of France, or at least not the parts of it we saw. Most tourists are quite "senior" to say the least - the youngsters are locals. There's a lot of wrinkly flesh exposed on the beaches, and we're not talking about ours! While having a coffee one morning at a Baguette Shop, we met an old lady who told us her son was a teacher in Melbourne. She wanted to chat, although our combined language skills were poor, and she managed to hurry up croissant production inside for us, when we told her they had none!

Of course, this is the biggest advanatge to living in a part of France, the availability of good bread, baguettes and croissants! It seems to us that the French are very ritualised in many ways, so that different food and drinks are able to be bought and consumed at particular times of day, and then not at all available at others. When we felt like something, it was a disappointment to find that particular shop closed. But when you fall into sync with the French habits, the rewards are very nice!

Fresh-squeezed juice stall at Ste-Anne. A delicious and healthy reviver on a hot day.

We had to return our car to the airport to fly out to Antigua. We already knew that Martinique traffic was abominable near Fort-De-France and this early morning (weekday) trip proved it. It took us about 90 minutes to drive the last 10km into Le Lamentin on a four lane highway, so heavy was the traffic, aggravated by entering traffic at every roundabout. Luckily we had anticipated this schemozzle, and left in plenty of time.