CRUISE 2014 - DAY 6 - MARTINIQUE, LESSER ANTILLES

We were really looking forward to being back on the island of Martinique.  We had stopped there a couple of times on previous cruises, but that was over 10 years ago and we hadn’t been back since.

I was up early so I could see the ship docking at the pier in Fort-de-France and get some pictures of the lovely town.  Martinique is a French holding and has a higher standard of living than most Caribbean islands.  Their currency is the Euro, although some vendors may take US dollars as well.  The island has a very European feel to it and I was glad that I could communicate in French as not a lot of people spoke much English.  There was not a lot of information to be found on the cruise discussion boards as not many cruises stop here, but I did find a few suggestions for things to do on the island.

We had breakfast and were off the ship around 10am.  It was a long pier and it probably took 7 or 8 minutes to get through the pier area and into town. 

 

We first headed to McDonalds as they had free wi-fi and then we walked further down the street to a currency exchange place to get some Euros. 

 

Just before noon, we headed to the public transportation area near the pier and were on the hunt for the accompanied taxi to Saint Pierre.  Accompanied taxis are the local transportation on Martinique and way cheaper than regular taxis.  The bus was full with only one seat left so Dave and I figured we would wait for the next one but a lady actually got off the bus and gave up her seat so we could get on.  We tried to assure her that we could wait but she insisted.  Once we got on, the bus left quite soon after.  The cost was 4.60 Euro per person each way compared to 40 Euro per person for a taxi tour.  The driver was a bit grumpy and drove like a maniac!

 

We were heading to a small town, further up the coast, called Saint Pierre.  The trip took about 40 minutes or so and we were let off in front of a small museum.  Since we didn’t know a whole lot about the history of the town, we paid 3 Euros each for the entrance fee.  It wasn’t a very large museum but we learned all about the history of the town and how an eruption of Mont Peleé in May 1902 destroyed the town and killed almost all of the 30,000 residents.  Only about 1,000 people survived because they saw the signs of an eruption and left before the disaster.

Mont Peleé

We spent a couple of hours wandering the streets looking at ruins, shops and the local church and then caught the taxi back to Fort-de-France around 2:15pm.  We made another stop at McDonalds for wi-fi access and then back on the ship around 4pm.

Ruins of the old prison where the only person to survive the eruption was being held in the dungeon and escaped the dangerous gas that killed the rest of the town



Beautiful tiling in the church

Another quiet evening was had.  We had not gone to any performances in the theatre which was another big difference on this cruise.  We almost always go to see the comedians or musical productions.   Since supper was usually not over until almost 10pm, we just didn’t feel like staying up late to see the shows. 

We had a wonderful day on Martinique.  In past stops, we always just got off the ship and took a ferry over to Pointe-du-Bout to go to a beach but this stop was a departure from the beach stops as we figured we had lots of those on this cruise.  We were glad we made the effort to try something new and it was well worth it!