Hi folks! Well we made it to Martinique but the morning started off all rainy and cloudy. Darn French! Lol. Martinique is a French island and everyone speaks French, they use the Euro and very few people speak English. So much different than all the other Caribbean islands we’ve visited.
We had an all day excursion planned and most of it was going to be outside. I contacted the tour operator to ask if he was still doing it. Found out we were the only people he had and if we wanted to cancel he’d reimbursed us the whole amount. So we cancelled and just slept in. Good move since it was rainy and windy all morning.
It did end up clearing up by about Noon so we decided to get off the ship and try to grab a taxi tour for 2 hours like we did yesterday. As we’re walking toward the end of the pier several people we had met on the ship told us that everything was closed since it was Palm Sunday and the country is predominantly Catholic. But we figured let’s just try and at least walk around the town.
When we got to the “Tourist Information” tent there’s this old gentleman sitting there that looks like Morgan Freeman. I ask if he’s with the Tourist Office but he says no, he’s a certified taxi driver and could give us a 2 hour tour of the island. Perfect! His name was Andrew and he was the nicest guy.
He took us all over the island. We saw the very poor section (very sad where shack on top of shack were hanging on the edge of the mountain looking like they were ready to slide down at the hint of any rain or wind!), the middle class section as well as the wealthy section.
Our first stop was at the Balata Church, which was a smaller replica of the Sacre-Coeur church in Paris. It wasn’t open so we couldn’t look inside but it did look similar to the church in Paris which I’ve been to. There was also a great view from the church down on to the island where our ship was docked.
We then went to this cool waterfall where people were swimming under the rushing water. We didn’t have our bathing suits with us or we would have dove right in!
We then went to a Botanical Garden but it was pretty expensive to get in and it didn’t look that great so we skipped it. But they did have a cool gift shop with all handmade things so Kathy got a beautiful dress and I got some goodies for my grandkids so it was worth it!
We then stopped by a couple lookout places and headed back to she ship. Andrew, aka Morgan Freeman, was a great driver and knew the island well. He had lived there his whole life. It felt like we were in the movie Driving Miss Daisy! Lol.
Tonight was formal night so we got all decked out and had another amazing meal. They had lobster so I thought, what the heck, I’ll order two! And they brought me three!! They were already taken out of the the tail and seasoned perfectly. They served them over citrus risotto with asparagus. Probably the best meal we had so far! Kathy had one lobster tail and beef Wellington so she got surf and turf!
After dinner we did the rounds of live music. We listened to John at the piano outside the Thomas Keller restaurant but he was a bit too mellow for our tastes. No sing along music! We then listened to the Music Society band, who played the Beatles show the first night, and they were great. And we ended our night with our favorite group, Elise and Eli, with their acoustical soothing sounds!
On to St John’s, Antigua & Barbuda tomorrow! Hope everyone had a great weekend!
The Wandering Italian 