Luggage and Literature

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. - St. Augustine

Guadeloupe (Part 2)

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Mike and I recently returned from Guadeloupe. In Part 1, I covered general information about the island, transportation, getting there, and our accommodations. In Part 2, I’ll cover fun things to do on the island. In Part 3, I’ll go through a breakdown of the cost of our trip. And in Part 4, I’ll talk about the scuba diving, and the dive operator that we used. So without further ado, fun things to see and do in Guadeloupe.

Go to the many beaches (des plages).

Guadeloupe Beach

Guadeloupe has a ton of beaches that are publicly accessible around the island. There are road signs that point them out, so you can’t miss them.  We visited several all over both Grande Terre and Basse Terre. Our favorite was Plage de Grande Anse (Beach of Grand Anse), even though it was a bit more populated than some of the other beaches we visited. It had shops, snack shops, food carts, and coco sorbet ladies (more about this below!). Plage de Grande Anse featured both the ocean view, but also a view of water back toward the mountains due to an inlet with mangrove trees. The sunset from this beach was fantastic.

Guadeloupe beach

Like I said, we visited beaches all over both islands. I recommend checking out a few different ones to find your own favorites.

Guadeloupe

Eat at Paradise Kafe in Deshaies.

This was our favorite restaurant on the island, by far. The French chef went to cooking school in Thailand, so the food served at Paradise Kafe is all Thai food. They rotate menus and only serve three entrees at a given time. The food was absolutely delicious, with incredible flavors and interesting textures. And the giant ice cream sundae for dessert was delicious too, creamy and flavorful. All I can say is, if you visit Guadeloupe, eat at Paradise Kafe.

Paradise Kafe

One thing to note, the restaurants in Deshaies, where we ate most, are not all open every day. Different restaurants are open on different days. So be aware of this and plan ahead so that you don’t miss out on a restaurant that you most want to try.

Wander the streets of Deshaies and imagine yourself on Death in Paradise.

Deshaies Guadeloupe

Have you heard of the BBC show Death in Paradise? I hadn’t until right around the time that Mike and I traveled to Guadeloupe. It’s not set in Guadeloupe, but a fictional island near Guadeloupe, but is filmed right in Deshaies. After returning from Guadeloupe, we’ve started watching the show, and it’s really fun recognizing the different locations that they film in.

Deshaies Guadeloupe

The town/village/whatever you want to call Deshaies is a beautiful place to simply wander the streets and take in the island life. All of the restaurants in Deshaies were delicious, and had their own personalities. After visiting several Caribbean islands, I can verify that all of them are different and have their own personalities. Deshaies seems to embody the personality of Guadeloupe.

Stop at Point de Vue de Gadet (Viewpoint of Gadet) and perhaps watch a sunset.

We really loved this spot. We stopped there twice, once during the day and once at sunset. At sunset it was quite busy, but gorgeous. During the day, we followed the paths from the viewpoint and really enjoyed the walk.

Point de Vue de Gadet

Drive along La Route de la Traversee.

As the one that drove during our time on the island, I have to say that I found this road terrifying, but also beautiful. Mike probably enjoyed the scenery more than I did, as I had to focus on driving. You see, many of the road on Guadeloupe are very narrow and winding. But this road is the most narrow and curvy road that I’ve ever been on. And people drive very fast…and don’t stay in their own lanes! You can check out the stop motion video that we (Mike) shot while we drove the road here.

Visit Cascade aux Ecrevisses (Waterfall with Crayfish).

Guadeloupe has two waterfalls. One of them, Les Chutes du Carbet (The Carbet Falls) is quite a hike to get to, so we opted to skip it. This waterfall however was an easy walk from the parking area. And it is so gorgeous! Take a swimming suit and enjoy an afternoon at the waterfall and in the stream.

Cascade aux Ecrivisse

Kayak, snorkel, and/or scuba dive at Islets Pigeon (Pigeon Island).

This is a very popular area. that lots of people kayak to and snorkel at. Several scuba diving operators also run dive boats to the area. Mike and I each did ten dives around Pigeon Island during the course of our trip to Guadeloupe. We dove with Les Heures Saines, and were perfectly happy with them They had English-speaking staff and were very easy to work with. And our local dive shop talked to the French SDI rep, and recommended them. It is a beautiful area, both above and below the water.

Pigeon Island Guadeloupe

Visit La Grande Soufriere.

Guadeloupe has a volcano. La Grande Soufriere is located on Basse Terre. It is often foggy enough that the volcano isn’t visible, which was the case during our trip. But nonetheless, it’s pretty interesting even visiting a place that has a volcano.

Wander the streets and shop in Les Moule.

Le Moule Guadeloupe

Les Moule is located on Grande Terre, and was where we were thinking about staying originally, before booking our dive shop and realizing how far away it was. But nonetheless, we spent a really enjoyable few hours there on our last full day on Guadeloupe. We had a nice lunch with an ocean view, browsed the shops, and scoped out the architecture and art. Definitely worth the time to visit.

Le Moule Guadeloupe

Le Moule Guadeloupe

Le Moule Guadeloupe

Stop at Pointe des Chateaux (Point of Castles).

Before our visit, I’d read that this place was great, but didn’t really have a sense of what it was. On our last day we decided to stop because we weren’t terribly far away. And I am incredibly glad that we did make it a point to stop. Pointe des Chateaux is stunning. It is a rare place that provides a view like this. And the vendors were also very friendly, and had beautiful items. Mike and I bought the coolest sand and resin turtle from one of them.

Pointe des Chateaux

Eat coconut sorbet from the many roadside vendors.

Oh my gosh! So there are these little old ladies that set up their hand crank sorbet churns on tables along the roadside and at popular locations like Pointe des Chateaux and Plage de Grande Anse. And the coconut sorbet is absolutely amazing! We didn’t find out about this stuff until a couple of days into our trip, but we definitely made the most of it once we did find out about it. It’s delicious and actually quite inexpensive. Definitely don’t miss out if you go to Guadeloupe!

Guadeloupe Part 2

In case you missed it, check out Part 1 of my series on Guadeloupe, where I covered general information about the island, transportation, getting there, and our accommodations. And watch for Part 3, where I’ll go through a breakdown of the cost of our trip. And in Part 4, I’ll talk about the scuba diving, and the dive operator that we used.

 

 

 

Guadeloupe (Part 1)

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Guadeloupe Part 1Mike and I recently returned from Guadeloupe. In Part 1, I’ll cover general information about the island, and our accommodations. In Part 2, I’ll cover fun things to do on the island. In Part 3, I’ll go through a breakdown of the cost of our trip. And in Part 4, I’ll talk about the scuba diving, and the dive operator that we used.

General Information

The island of Guadeloupe is actually a butterfly shaped archipelago made up of the two islands of Grande Terre and Basse Terre. We spent the majority of our trip on the western island of Basse Terre, but the more populated island is the eastern island of Grande Terre. Basse Terre contains a volcano called La Grande Soufriere. Consequently Basse Terre is much more mountainous than Grande Terre (which is hilly but not flat). The population of Guadeloupe is approximately 400,000 people.

GuadeloupeThe currency in use is the Euro. The main language spoken on the island is French, although people spoke at least a tiny bit of English most places that we traveled to. I am about 25% fluent in French, according to Duolingo, so the combination of my bit of French, and the small amount of English worked well enough to get by. One thing to note with regard to restaurants though, is that many places served Creole, so the combination of languages and food types sometimes made menus difficult to read.

Getting There

Norwegian Airline started running direct flights between the United States and Guadeloupe and Martinique this year. I found a fantastic deal on tickets due to the new routes(more on that in Part 3) on dates that we were available, so we decided to book a trip to Guadeloupe. So we ended up flying United Airlines from Omaha to Chicago O’Hare to Boston, staying overnight in Boston, then flying to Guadeloupe. When you live in central Nebraska, it’s always a process to travel to more out-of-the-way type destinations, but so worth it. Our flight experience with United was fine, except for the single flight where they switched our seats to the last row middle seats (I think due to an aircraft change). And flying with Norwegian was quite comfortable. The flight was far from full, so Mike and I had an entire row to ourselves.

A couple of things to note with Norwegian. First, you have to pay for all drinks and snacks onboard the aircraft, so make sure that you’re prepared to pay steep prices, or to bring your own snacks and drinks with you. And since the flight is about 4 hours, a drink is probably a necessity. Second, pay attention to fees and weight restrictions on baggage. The weight restrictions are different from most US legacy carriers, and the fees are really high if you have to pay for additional weight or bags at the airport. Also, download a copy of any confirmation e-mails showing whatever baggage fees you prepaid. I had to get a refund from Norwegian after we returned, because on our return flight they apparently couldn’t find the additional baggage fee that we’d prepaid. The refund was pretty easy to obtain, but to avoid it make sure that you have access to your confirmation emails.

Transportation

For our visit, we had a rental car; and I’d recommend getting one as relying on public transportation would severely limit your ability to see the sights of the island. I had a truly terrible experience with Budget Rent-A-Car on the island (they lost my reservation; the service counter was incredibly slow–like over an hour to rent the car; they charged a cleaning fee afterwards which was not authorized in the contract, and which was not warranted as we’d returned the car clean). So although I’ve had a fine experience with Budget elsewhere, I would  not recommend renting from them on Guadeloupe. Sixt was by far the fastest company in terms of getting customers set up with their rental cars and on their way; so if we return to Guadeloupe, we’d probably use them instead.

Renault Twingo
Our Renault Twingo rental car.

But we did have the cutest little car, a Renault Twingo. It was so tiny that we had to put the backseat down for our luggage to fit. Oh, and make sure that you’re comfortable driving a manual transmission, as most cars on the island are stick shifts, and there are lots of hills, curves, and narrow roads. I’ve driven stick shift since high school (thanks mom and dad!), so I did all of the driving and it wasn’t a big deal.

Accommodations

We stayed at a bungalow called Les Merveilleux flots de la Mer (which translates to The Marvelous Waves of the Sea). We were the only guests for the week of our visit, so it was really nice and quiet. And the proprietors are incredibly kind and helpful. We really appreciated visiting with them from time to time throughout the week. It appeared that they were also making some improvements to the property to make it even nicer in the future. The proprietors told us that a paved parking area and a pool were the projects in the works. The pool would be very nice, as the temperatures are regularly in the 80s Fahrenheit, and it’s quite humid.

Guadeloupe
Gorgeous flowers outside our bungalow.

It had a very nice patio that we had lunch at several days of our trip and spent some time on during the evenings. The bungalow also had a kitchenette and a living room area, in addition to the bedroom and bathroom. It was nice to have extra space in addition to the bedroom. And it was quite handy to be able to make and eat breakfast and lunches in the bungalow. The bedroom was the only room with air conditioning, and only from 8pm-6am, which was disappointing and unexpected based on the information posted on Hotels.com. And the bathroom was really tiny and dated. But overall, the whole space was comfortable and clean. And it was quite comparable to other accommodations on the island, and set up nicely for several week-long vacations, such as many Europeans are accustomed to.

Cat
The cat who decided to hang out with us on the patio of our bungalow.

And I was a terrible blogger, and took zero pictures of the bungalow, so you can find pictures and more information about the property here.

 

Check out Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of my series on Guadeloupe!

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