This year we decided to spend our summer holidays with our friends on the French island of Martinique in the Carribean Sea. Our friends come from there and were instrumental in our decision

We all rented an amazing house (check it out) and spent the time discovering and enjoying the island. The first striking thing are the colours. The whole island is covered with a deep green vegetation regularly scattered with colourful flowers. As it is a volcanic island, the topography is very mountainous and the sceneries are spectacular. If you travel there you must spend an afternoon in the Balata gardens located above Fort-de-France. The owner has done an great job and you can even walk among the trees as a tree trail can be used.

There were a lot of historical visits to schedule. In Saint-Pierre for example we walked among some ruins left after the volcano erupted and destroyed everything in 1902. It was a bit like Pompei but on a much smaller scale. We also had the opportunity to enjoy the guided tour of Josephine de Beauharnais' family plantation from which nothing much remained as the main house was destroyed by a cyclone. There were other cute places such as the Pottery village where we bought most of our souvenirs and Fort-de-France and its spice market.

We didn't go to the beach very often as we spent a lot of time scuba diving (take a look at the other post) but we spent a whole day sailing a catamaran (well the skipper sailed - we just enjoyed it) hopping from island to island. If you take a look at our photo gallery (here) you will understand what I mean. We bathed in the so-called Josephine's tub which she never bathed in, and ate accras there. We swam in the Trapeze (another body of water between 2 islets) and to the Islet of Madame. We sailed past the Warewolf islet which nests endangered species. It definitely looks like the islet where Jack Sparrow was dumped in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean. The most moving moment of the day was when our skipper led us to the islet of Chancel where he explained the history of the ruins of a sugar plantation relying on an enslaved labour force and helped us find iguanas.

Another heyday was a horse ride we booked early in the morning. Our guide welcomed us in his remote ranch, handed out the horses according to each one's level, helped us groom them and we were off followed by 2 very cute foals frolicking around us. The stroll led us through the forest to the beach where some of us had a nice gallop. We continued towards a high perched chapel from where the view was breathtaking. The return road enabled us to ride in the shallow waters of a secluded cove. We felt like happy castaways

So, to sum up, this island is extraordinarily beautiful and the people living there were most of the time very welcoming whether in restaurants, museums or anywhere. We definitely plan to go back one day !!!