WHERE TO STAY
The Island of St. Lucia has two very definite sides to it, the West side, which boasts some of the most beautiful beach front hotel resorts, and the East side, a bit more rugged and rocky where the weather and the seas can do their wild things without upsetting the visitors too much…
On the West side there is functional to 5* Diamond accommodation, and our travel plan took us from the CocoPalm in Rodney bay with a mini beauty & yoga studio everyone should discover as they are the hotels best kept secret – as well as the Mud-Slide cocktails – to The BodyHoliday just outside Castries, which truly offers the body a holiday, literally giving you your mind back after your stay, when they have finished working on the well-being and physical reconditioning of your body.
And in the sublime hotel department there is the beach-front Anse Chastenet; a property with a village-style layout with guest houses and villas nested in the hill top, each one named after the local flora.
And above the Anse Chastenet sits, what truly is one of the no.1 resort in the Caribbean– Jade Mountain. Rising majestically above the 600acre beach this place is a cornucopia or organic architecture, built to make you feast on the beauty of St. Lucia’s views of the Pitons, the sea and the canopy of the treetops all around. The suites here have 3 walls, the forth wall is the view, entirely open to this scenic beauty. If possibly at least go see the Galaxy Suite…say no more.
WHERE TO EAT
A local Lunch:
Put your book down and have a fresh fruit lunch sitting on the long white beach over from Rodney Bay. Choose from a freshly picked medley of fruit which comes to you by water: mangoes, papayas, coconuts, wax-apples, pineapples, bananas and more, are all handed over to you in the sea as you swim out to meet the passing fruit-boat.
A typical Dinner:
Jambe de Bois on Gros Islet is a small thatched roof beach house, run be the happiest, and cheeriest ladies. The local cuisine here serves excellent home-cooked rotis and freshly made cocktails, and it is the most perfect place to be, to view the giddy lights of Rodney Bay across the water. The location is a short walk through the grounds of the old 18th century British fort. The building rises up from a strip of land called Pigeon Island where once carrier pigeons were used to communicate either French or English news, depending on who was ruling St. Lucia, when this part of the island was not connected to mainland St. Lucia.
WHERE TO STARGAZE
The top floor of Jade Mountain in Anse Chastanet, has got to be one of the most extraordinary places in the world. The Jade Mountain Club caters exclusively for the hotels’ guests, and tables are set around an infinity pool which gives off a dazzling kaleidoscope of colours, picked up by the setting sun which reflects on the hand made Venetian glass tiles lining the pool.
TYPICAL DAY IN ST LUCIA
Take a drive down along the coast, allowing a full day and get as far as the Botanical Gardens. If you are close to Rodney Bay enlist Robert Lewis, the driver par excellence, who collects you at your hotel with a hot cup of locally made cocoa. He knows absolutely everyone on St. Lucia after 30yrs of driving, and greets they all while driving from A-Z. He will show you the secrets of how a nutmeg and a cashew nut grow, to the wonders of the rainforest, where a cable car takes you high above the lush green canopy, alive with bird-song and humming-birds.
FOR THE BODY
The BodyHoliday – just a 1 day-spa makes you want to come back and check in a whole week. Your body really does need it! The resort has an incredible selection of treatments, massages, classes and activities from Tai Chi, to exquisite Ayurvedic Massages, Ivenga yoga and yoga for body, mind, soul and diet. Then there is an uber-cool gym, fencing, tennis, scuba, sailing and more, and classes all run back to back, on the hour, and everything is all-inclusive – so do as much as you can or want to. As they rightly say “give us your body for a week and we’ll give you back your mind.”
FOR DIVING
Dive St. Lucia is THE state-of-the-art dive centre recently opened just outside Rodney Bay. Equipped to Swiss perfection the centre has an on-site dive pool for lessons in shallow or 3mt deep waters, a fully stocked dive-equipment store and hire department, and two freshly unwrapped dive boats for up to 20 passengers each: Deep Wonders and Sea Titan. The centre, fully Padi-licensed runs daily dive trips into the beautiful crystalline blue waters on the West coast, where a dive can either be lead around a deep-sea wreck, or in amongst the turtles, seahorses and clownfish which amuse both novice and well-travelled divers.
FOR SHOPPING
Castries Market offers local colour and festivities in everything you see: from floaty colour-burst summer dresses, sarongs, palm-leaf sun hats and bowls (made as you wait in the shade) for her, to crazy Caribbean shirts for him, alongside spices and relishes for his BBQ back home and generally fun keepsakes to add to the fridge-magnet collection.
GETTING THERE
British Airways and Virgin Altantic from London Heathrow to St. Lucia direct.
Diving holidays: John Spencer-Ades – for your bespoke travel for Divers www.thescubaplace.co.uk
Jade Mountain & Anse Chastanet – www.jademountain.com
The BodyHoliday LeSport – www.thebodyholiday.com