Enchanted Princess in Martinique
Martinique is a Caribbean island territory of France. This 436 square mile volcanic island sits between Barbados and Saint Lucia in the windward islands of the Lesser Antilles. Mont Pelee is an active volcano at the north end of the island. Its 1902 eruption killed over 29,000 people and destroyed the town of Saint Pierre with almost no survivors. The city has mostly been rebuilt, but there are a few ruins left of the old city including part of a prison where one person survived in an underground cell. It last erupted in 1932.
view of Fort-de-France from the ship
Tourist attractions include rainforest, beaches, and a 17th century fort. It also has a zoo, a botanical garden, and a banana museum. La Savane des Esclaves in the town of Les Trois-Îlets is outdoor museum in the form of a recreated native village.
cruise ship dock at Pointe Simon
Ships dock in the capital city of Fort-de-France. Currency is the euro. A lot of places near the port will take US dollars. The climate is tropical, usually warm, humid and often windy. Temperatures are usually in the 70’s to 80’s F.
ferry dock near the cruise port
We docked at Pointe Simon, which is the main cruise ship port. The port there was pretty much just the cruise ship pier. After walking down to the end of the pier it exited right into town, not into the usual conglomerate of cruise port shops. These are all unique local stores, not the same stores often found at every port. There is a ferry dock near the cruise ship dock where small ferries take people for a short ride to a couple different beaches. The little booth where you buy ferry tickets has a schedule and they do take US dollars. The ferry ride is less than half an hour and it runs pretty frequently. There is a secondary cruise pier called Tourelles Cruise Port which is about a 20–30-minute walk from the main tourist area. That one is used for the second ship when two ships come on the same day.
little beach below the fort near the cruise dock
Walking along the shore leads to a small sandy beach. It’s not the best beach around, but it is close to the ship. There’s also a park with a nice playground along the seashore.
one of many narrow streets
Walking through the part of town near the port there are narrow streets with narrow sidewalks. Some have fancy brick paving, others are asphalt or concrete in various states of disrepair. Buildings are mainly narrow rowhouses, often with business at the bottom. Many are picturesque old architecture, but some are newer. The newer ones are usually bigger.
one ruin in a row of buildings
Here and there crumbling ruins sit in a narrow lot between a couple buildings, still attached on both sides.
cathedral and really tall palm tree
The steeple of an old cathedral towers over much of the town, with a palm tree nearly as tall growing next to it. The cathedral is of the town’s tourist attractions, but the unusually tall palm tree next to it was interesting in its uniqueness.
reflection of the cathedral and palm tree
A building across the way shows a reflection of the cathedral and the tree. In actuality the tree was only slightly shorter than the steeple, but in these photos it looks taller in the one taken directly because it was slightly closer, but significantly shorter than it actually is in the reflection.
bottle garden in a vacant lot
Sometimes there are random things that are interesting only because of how odd they are – like the bottle garden we saw in a vacant lot on a street corner in Fort-de France.
Fort St. Louis
We walked to Fort St. Louis. It’s an ancient stone fort, but it is still an operating military base rather than an old fort where tourists can go. At least the part you can see from the outside is ancient. There was a gate guard at the entrance motioning us away, but according to a website about the fort people can tour it. From their website it looks like tours are only allowed during scheduled times on certain days with tickets purchased for specific tour times for a one hour and 15 minute tour. From that it sounds like it’s probably a guided tour. The tickets are purchased elsewhere rather than right at the fort.
park across the street from the fort
A park across the street had some structures that were probably once part of the fort. It also had a lot of litter.
market
Many streets full of shops meander through the town in the port area. A lot of the women’s clothing displayed in the windows of shops that sold it looked so tiny that the average American might have a hard time fitting one leg through the waistband of a pair of pants with no possibility of actually getting a foot into the pantleg. Either Martinique is full of extremely skinny ladies or they actually sell some bigger sizes of clothing than what they show in their window displays. I don’t know what size they were, but if the smallest American size is 0 these clothes must have been about –5. There’s also a fruit market. Or at least a market with a lot of stalls selling fruit. It had quite a few stalls selling other things too.
carnival tent booths
We were there during Carnival so there were lots of white tent stalls along the waterfront selling food, clothes, jewelry, souvenirs and other merchandise. None of them were open when we first got off the ship, but they all opened while we were still in port. They had some sort of parade going on at the time our ship departed. We could hear it, but not see it so it was probably one street in, on the other side of all the booths at the waterfront.
waterfront near the cruise dock
Other than just wandering around or taking the nearby ferry to the beach, Martinique is the sort of place where it’s best to research what you want to do and how to get to it before going there if you haven’t booked anything. There may be last-minute island tours available. We did that there once before, but with their carnival going on during this visit everything was shutting down early that day and drivers of taxis and vans pretty much seemed to have taken the day off.
The highlight of the island tour we took on a previous visit to Martinique was the bits of ruins in St. Pierre that remain from the 1902 eruption of Mont Pelee.
crazy looking bus
We saw a crazy looking triple bus at a bus stop, but I don’t know anything about it or where it goes.
waterfront walkway
Excursions offered through Enchanted Princess in Martinique from our cruise: Best Of Martinique: St. Pierre & Rum Distillery; Easy Martinique Panoramic Drive; Authentic Martinique By Cabrio Bus; Discovering Creole Martinique; Balata Botanical Garden; Histories Plantation & Botanical Garden; Local Connections Belfort Plantation House & Clement Rum Tasting With Cultural Expert; Martinique 4X4 Adventure; Walking Tour Of Fort-De-France; Catamaran Cruise, Grand Anse Beach & Swim; Two-Site Snorkeling Adventure
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