SXM Trip Part 4-1 (Tuesday, February 24th)

Once again after I looked through my photo's I couldn't fit what I wanted into one post, so here's how we spent part of our Tuesday.

We were awake bright and early as usual. The sunrise was right on time, it was brilliant and accompanied by a nice gentle trade wind. With good coffee in hand we took our morning walk along NBBC’s beach... by the way, was it just our villa or does St Martin have something against large coffee mugs? I’m used to my VENTI size cup!! My wife continued her sea glass harvesting while I tried not to spill my precious mini cup of joe. She brought home a LOT of colorful glass that was nicely polished by Mother Nature. I think her trophy piece was a brilliant blue nugget. Our temporary family pet would pay us another visit, I like her.







Each time we drove into or through Marigot our eyes were of course drawn to historic Fort Louis, circa 1789, with its French colors flying high atop Marigot. We assumed the view must be outstanding from that perch. Our goal was to climb that hill this morning, so we securely wrapped up the toe and drove into town. We found an easy parking spot on the edge of town and walked over to Rosemary’s LoLo again, this time we tried her breakfast! Rosemary is a very nice lady and her restaurant operates like a well oiled machine. From our Market side table we could clearly see Fort Louis in all its glory as we enjoyed omelette's with avocado salad and a Johnny cake, nice. Small salads came with a couple of my breakfast and apps on this trip, unusual where I'm from, but I liked that!




The walk up to the fort is an easy one even with the toe. The walk from town starts as a gradual incline passing the Eglise Catholique de Marigot. This is where I would pray, "Please Lord, give me the strength, focus and precision to properly raise my tender toe over each uneven step along this journey, amen." This beautiful church has island charm and surprisingly it's relatively young at only 74 years old. Once at the base of the forts hill the stairs become a bit steep and the elevation increases quickly. On our way back down we did see some older folks holding the handrail and taking short breaks during their trek, slow and easy will get you there! Once at the fort we found only 2 other early birds walking around, which was nice! What an amazing 360 degree panoramic view including Anguilla, Marigot, Simpson Bay, the valley and mountain tops and we could actually see Nettle Bay Beach Club, cool. The fort’s stonework has been restored to some extent complete with several cannons. As I looked out over the marina at Marigot I let my mind wander…..imagining what it was like defending this well provisioned port from the English who inhabited Anguilla back in the day. We were fortunate on this day to have the most amazing clear blue skies punctuated by bright white clouds. We had this gorgeous perch basically to ourselves for an hour except for the other couple. The nice German couple took our photo’s and we took theirs, funny how we made that happen when neither spoke the others language, simply gesturing and saying “photograph?”, “yes?”, “good?” Then Merci! With a chuckle. Glad we took the time to walk up that hill, it really is breathtaking on a big blue sky day.


















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I don't recommend hanging on this flag pole like my wife did....but I love her crazy side!

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We took our time walking back down into town. We wanted to take a look at Marina Royale, so we walked through the side streets in search of this hidden lagoon. We really liked the architecture and colors found on these streets. We walked just a couple of blocks and we saw a few tall masts with rigging sticking up above some shops, if you don't look up you could miss the marked entrance!

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One regret from this trip was running out of time to return and dine at one of the restaurants here. The marina is small, but the walkways around the horseshoe shaped bulk head are nice. There are several shops here that my wife really liked, everything from bikini shops,cigar shop, clothing shops, jewelry, charter companies, wonderful looking outdoor bars and restaurants and local artists selling their work along the waters edge. Again it's not a large complex, but it has a really nice feel.

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After spending a little money we exited the back of one of the shops and found ourselves on a non-descript side street with dreary store fronts. You would probably not find this lagoon if you weren't looking for it. We had really worked up a thirst looking through all those stores, so we required a beverage, but where? we walked from street to street looking for the perfect place...why didn't we stay in the lagoon?? eventually we found ourselves back at the market and grabbed a tall table right on the street at Le Bistro De La Mer, perfect! My Presidente was ice cold and my wife had an awesome Mango Mojito, so good in fact she had 2! We decided to eat lunch here before choosing a beach. I had a very good but boring burger and fries and she had the special which was the largest portion of mussels we've ever seen! They were perfectly steamed in a heavy pot with white wine and she said the broth was very very good, she was in heaven dipping her fresh baguette and sipping her mango mojito.

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After our leisurely impromptu lunch, which hit the spot! we headed back to the villa to drop off our purchases and grab our beach stuff. We decided to head over towards Simpson Bay, however we had no idea where we would actually end up.................


To be continued in Part 4-2<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cheers.gif" alt="" />