Fort der France, Jardin de Balata
Fort-de France is the capital of Martinique and it is a busy commercial center and has an attractive historical kernel. Some interesting places are: the park La Savane, Bibliothéque Schoelcher, Cathedral St Louis, Fort St. Louis. Fort-de-France is much more interesting from the touristic point of view than Port-au Prince in Guadeloupe.
Close to Fort-de France, the Jardin de Balata is a botanical garden in a rainforest setting and has a tree walk. The botanical garden is interesting, but unfortunately it cannot top Jardin des Haies which we have seen on Guadeloupe.
Rocher du Diamant, Plage des Salines
During a drive through the south of the island we have passed several wonderful black and white sandy beaches, small yacht harbors. The Rocher du Diamant situated ca. 1 km away from the coast has been occupied during hundreds of years by British soldiers. Several attempts to conquer the rock by the French soldiers failed. In a last attempt the French sent some barrels of rum to the English soldiers on the rock. This time they were successful. One of the finest beaches in the Caribbean is the Plage des Salines with a long stretch of golden sand and hundreds of inclined palms. Like a post card.
La Mauny
The most important products on the island are bananas and sugar cane. Sugar cane is processed to sugar and to an excellent rum. The most popular rum drinks are: planteur (rum with some fruit syrup) and ti punch (rum with lime and cane sugar). We have visited the rum distillery. La Mauny in Rivière Pilote. The sugar cane is harvested close to the distillery and 72 hours later they got the rum. Gorgeous!
Dolphin Watching
As in Dominica, the most exciting experience in Martinique was the encounter with wild animals, in this case with dolphins. We saw a wild colony with ca. 1000 dolphins. There is a wonderful interworking between the dolphins, the frigate birds and the tourists. The dolphins push up the fish swarms to the surface which of course attracts the frigate birds to a delicious meal. The tourists see the frigate birds flying around and can come closer to the dolphins. Gorgeous! We booked a 4-hours tour with ‘Planète Dauphins’ with the motor boat. They went ca. 30 min off the coast, where we saw the dolphin colony. The dolphins were very social and played ca. one hour with the waves around our boat. Wonderful!
Panoramic Hotel ‘Trois islets’
We have lived in Panoramic Hotel, Trois islets
We have enjoyed very much Martinique with very good roads, cultivated villages, wonderful beaches and a lot of flowers. On Feb 14 we took the ferry towards St. Lucia.
