MSC CRUISES – LESSER ANTILLES
Martinique is a Caribbean island that is an overseas department of France in the Caribbean Sea, north of St. Lucia and south of Dominica. Tourism comes mostly from France, with big jets flying in directly from Paris. North Americans, who have no direct access, tend to overlook it. It’s heavily overbuilt in the south, but has a wild mountain center and some nice undeveloped coastline in the north. Exploration-minded visitors will find that Martinique has two great features: a wealth of high mountain and coastal trails that are easy to find and use, and a low hassle factor. The island is much better off economically than its neighbours, with people living at a standard comparable to Greece or Russia. This means you won’t often be approached by vendors or guides; tourists are mostly left alone.
The island is dominated by Mount Pelee, which on 8 May 1902 erupted and completely destroyed the city of Saint Pierre, killing 30,000 inhabitants. In the South of the island, there are many beautiful beaches with a lot of shopping and tourists. In the North, hike in the rain forests and mountains and see black sand beaches.
The island cuisine is a superb blend of French and Creole cooking that is worth trying.
Get Around. Public transport is very limited and taxis are expensive, so to make the most of Martinique, it is recommended that you hire a car. Without a car you will miss some of Martinique’s best landscapes and scenery. Driving in Martinique will be a pleasure in comparison to other Caribbean islands. The majority of roads are of an excellent standard.
There are several speed cameras and speed checks, so always watch your speed.
14 Nomad Mania sights evenly distributed around island.
SEE & DO – A clockwise tour of the island.
FORT-de-FRANCE (pop 83,000 2015). Capital city of Martinique.
The administrative capital was over-shadowed by Saint-Pierre, the oldest city in the island, which was renowned for its commercial and cultural vibrancy as “The Paris of the Caribbean”. By the turn of the 20th century, however, Fort-de-France became economically important after the volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre in 1902.
Fort Saint Louis. Fort Saint Louis was built in 1638 to protect the city against enemy attacks, soon destroyed, and rebuilt in 1669 with a Vauban design.
Martinique Regional Nature Park
Maison d’Aimé Césaire. House Museum.
Schoelcher Library*
St. Louis Cathedral*
MARTINIQUE REGIONAL NATURE PARK. Founded in 1976, it was the first reserve of its kind to be created on a tropical island. Covering 63,000 hectares, it occupies a large part of the island, encompassing 32 of the 34 municipalities of Martinique.
Pelée mountain
Carbet mountains
Capes Trail* (Trace des Caps). In south Martinique, a superb coastal path.
Salines pond*, a sanctuary for many migrant birds,
Saut-Gendarme waterfall*. In Fonds-Saint-Denis, a nice little walk in the heart of the tropical forest to see this ten metres high.
Domaine d’Émeraude8, Le Morne-Rouge has four kilometres of forest paths to discover a host of native species, gardens and conservatories.
Cascade Didier. Above Fort de France, follow the Didier road to the Didier factory that produces the local sparkling water. Park after the wastewater treatment plant. Bring a torch and hiking shoes. 20 minute walk. Walk along the fence, descent to a bridge, ascend to the tunnel of horrors (a hundred meters tunnel that is not lit and may require a little balancing act on the water pipes). At the end of the tunnel, follow the big pipes all the way, at the water catchment dam, the first waterfall, second waterfall (a little climbing using a rope) and the final waterfall for compulsory swimming.
Balata Botanical Gardens. Balata is a serene little town with a church built to remember those who died in World War I and the Jardin de Balata a garden with thousands of tropical plants.
Gorges de la Falaise*, near Ajoupa-Bouillon. 200 metres canyon 10m deep and 1-3m wide on the river Falaise. Walk on smooth rocks (hiking shoes) and swim. On private property €7. Don’t bring mobile phones, huge cameras.
Morne Rouge. A small city of 5,000 at 394m elevation.Access to the Montagne Pelée.
Aires volcaniques et forestières de la Martinique. (Volcanic and Forest areas of Martinique. Tentative WHS (09/04/2014). Covering an area of 1,080 km2, the island of Martinique is located in the heart of the Lesser Antilles arc between Dominica in the North and Saint Lucia in the South. About 65kms long and 30kms wide, it is the most eccentric of the West Indian arc. It has a very rugged volcanic relief, extremely mountainous to the north with Mount Pelée (1,395m) and the Pitons du Carbet (1,197m at Piton Lacroix). Subject to a humid tropical maritime climate, this gets abundant annual rainfall.
The rest of the territory is hilly to the south and relatively flat as it approaches the bay of Fort-de-France but above all it is a volcanic continuum that stretches from north to south.
The great diversity of bioclimatic, topographical and altitudinal conditions favors forest, and a very rich flora from the shores to the volcanic summits: mangroves, xerophilic, mesophilic, hygrophilic, mountain forests, semi-wooded thickets above 800 meters and, above 1,100 meters, altitudinal savannas with ferns and bromeliad.
Morne Larcher (“The Reclining Woman”), not far from the shore, the Rocher du Diamond, a geological curiosity, full of history, populated with legends.
Mount Pelee. What is the world’s most dangerous mountain. The Eiger, K2, Annapurna, even New Hampshire’s Mount Washington have had their champions. But if you’re measuring by how many people have actually been killed on that mountain, Pelée is the hands-down winner of this contest. This is a mountain that has reached out and snuffed out more than 30,000 people right on its flanks. A couple of other mountains, such as Krakatoa, can claim more indirect victims, killed by tsunamis and famines they caused. But of all the mountains in the world, Pelée is the queen of instant death.
There were a lot of warnings of Pelee’s great eruption in 1902, which weren’t heeded. Today you can climb with no worries. It is a wonderfully beautiful mountain whose trails have a little of everything–crags, chasms, ocean and mountain vistas, and progressive zones of lush, fascinating flora.
“La Montagne Pelée” means “The Bald Mountain.” Pelée is third-highest summit of the Lesser Antilles, barely eclipsed by Guadeloupe’s Grande Soufrière and Dominica’s Morne Diablotin.
Pelée is in the Parc Naturel Régional de la Martinique, a well-cared-for preserve. Martinique being an integral part of France, this natural area benefits from the funding a big first world country can provide. There are no fees and no red tape.
Pelée can only be climbed on established trails, of which there are three currently open:
L’Aileron: Well-constructed and varied trail coming up Pelée’s east side. It starts on the Aileron itself, a fin that extends out from the volcano’s flanks, then climbs beautifully vegetated slopes to the crater rim. After wandering along the rim, it drops into dripping fern forests in the caldera before crawling up the steep inner cone formed by the 1902 eruption.
La Grande Savane: Beeline trail coming up the sunnier west flank of the mountain. It lacks the variety of the Aileron route–skipping the caldera and some of the zones of vegetation–and it is uniformly steep. Its main attraction is that even after the summit area clouds up, as it does most days by mid-morning, this route tends to offer some pretty views on the way up.
North Face/Morne Macouba: This is the longest and least-used route.
Zoo de Martinique / Habitation Latouche. Small wildlife park with winding trails and colonial era ruins.
Anse Turin. Lovely black sand beach with nice view of Mt Pelee. Several wrecks easy to see snorkelling. Beach fronts St Pierre.
Cascade Couleuvre. A 2.8km round trip hike, less than 1 hour, 170m elevation gain on a well maintained trail with many creek crossings. Start from parking area at the end of the small road of Anse Couleuvre, immediately on the right before crossing the river. The path goes deep into the tropical forest along the Couleuvre River in the middle of an old cocoa plantation. The final part of the hike is a little steeper, with a succession of stairs. The 120m waterfall is the highest in Martinique. There is no pool for swimming.
Grande Riviere. Another long detour back.
La Caravelle Lighthouse. At the end of a long peninsula, it is a 30 min walk up to the lighthouse where you get a view of the whole island.
Caravelle peninsula*. Two marked hikes departing from the car park at the Château Dubuc:
1. one short loop of around 1h30, taking in the mangrove and dry forest, and
2. coast trail. 3h30 for exploring the wild coastline. Has less shade, bring water, sunscreen and a hat. Has superb viewpoints, and the Caravelle lighthouse with its orientation table at 157 metres above sea level.
Château Dubuc, an old sugar plantation house built in the 18th century
Trésor Bay – beautiful view has a small museum about the history of the site.
Grande Anse des Salines. At the far south end of island
Anse Ceron. Great snorkelling.
Les Anses-d’Arlet. Village.
Le Musée de la Mer, Les Trois-Îlets. Ship Museum.
Habitation Clement. Rum distillery. Garden has many interesting trees. In south Fort-de-France.
Festivals
Martinique Jazz Festival. With a focus on Caribbean jazz, including that of Cuba, women leaders, the Afro-English jazz scene and young people, it is held around the island around the first week of December.
Vava. The Carnival of Martinique runs from Saturday to Wednesday of the week of the fat days before Lent; in particular Shrove Saturday (presentation of the queens of the carnival), Shrove Monday (parade of burlesque weddings costumed in transvestites), Shrove Tuesday (parade of red devils costumed in red) and Ash Wednesday (parades in black and white, death by Vaval).
The Martinique carnival was born from the meeting of European and African cultures during colonization. It had its heyday in St. Peter at the end of the19th century . The tradition of carnival has been perpetuated in Fort-de-France since the destruction of Saint-Pierre in 1902 (eruption of Mount Pelée). Concentrated in Fort-de-France, but the Martinique carnival takes place in fact all over the island.
