St.Pierre is in St.Martin

So I have made my 5th journey to the lovely island of Sint Maarten / Saint Martin. Some people wonder why I wouldn’t want to visit somewhere new, but if they’d visited here they would totally understand.

The island – half French and half Dutch – is a wonderful mix of European and Caribbean Culture. Euro-style on island-time. It’s a very small island – it takes an hour or so to drive the entire perimeter – with only 75,000 or so citizens.

The Dutch side – Sint Maarten - is a little more Americanized with casinos, sports bars, night clubs, Burger King and McDonalds etc. Dutch and English are spoken widely and Heineken is the beer of choice. The Dutch capitol is a port for cruiseships and is known as a destination for shopping, especially for inexpensive diamonds. I have twice stayed on the Dutch side in the Maho area and had a blast. Maho is famous for the airport landing strip which is at the edge of the beach. But unstead of me explaining it, I’ll let you take a look at one of the many YouTube videos showing the amazing thrill of a plane landing at Maho:



This is now my 3rd visit to the French side of the island. My parents first took the entire family here 20 years ago and very little has changed. At that time we stayed at Le Flamboyant hotel which was a nice place that faced the lagoon, had a kitchen and was close to some excellent beaches, a grocery and a French patisserie. I stayed there again when I traveled there 12 years ago – which was my very first solo trip. This hotel is very close to the French capital of Marigot – a beautiful little city with a picturesque wharf area filled with French bistros, yachts and sailboats.

For this trip I will be staying in Orient Bay, on the North East side of the island. Generally when I tell people that I am staying in Orient Bay, I get some raised eyebrows as it is quite famous as a “nude” beach. The truth is, only a small portion of the beach is nude – which is part of the clothing-optional resort called Club Orient (a link if that’s your thing). And no, I’m not staying there.

Orient Beach is set up much like the South of France with beach clubs lining the beach offering chairs, drinks, food, live music, and, in some cases, dancing. Some of the beach clubs even bring in big name DJ’s from Europe to spin on specific nights. It is very French here – so it is a good idea to understand even just the basics of the language if you ever plan to stay on this part of the island.

My plan is to spend 6 days here. 6 days of sunshine, delicious French food, good wine and lots of rest. Here goes nothing…