My wife and I enjoyed a very relaxing week on St. Barth’s in June. Not counting a couple of day trips, this was our fourth trip to the island, each spaced 3 or 4 years apart. Our report is a bit late, partly because the following 2 weeks were on St. Martin, and partly because of other pressures on return.

Getting there
We drove to JFK from upstate New York and overnighted at the airport Radisson Hotel, chosen mainly because we could get parking there for the nearly 3 weeks we were away, and overall it’s not a bad place. Travel on AA to SXM was routine, except we were randomly selected to go through the special screening process. Since we do only carry-on, we were able to avoid the immigration line in St. Maarten, go directly to the in-transit gate, and were on our Winair flight in 45 minutes or so. For the first time we landed on St. Barth’s from the ocean direction – just about as exciting as the over-the hill approach, as they still skimmed a hill – just a different one.

Car Rental
Our hotel package included a car from Maurice Questel. Our name was on the board at the airport booth, and the car was ready, but the package provided only a manual transmission. I have driven a manual on St. Barth’s before with no problem but, having reached the stage of “been there done that”, opted to upgrade to an automatic, which took about 10 minutes to arrive. Picked up a few staples at a small supermarket near the airport (the larger Match closes mid-day) and drove to Le Village St. Jean. Roads are quite narrow and hilly, so driving requires some care, but traffic was not heavy during our stay and there seemed to be fewer motorcyclists than on our previous visit – perhaps Darwin’s law is starting to have an effect. Happily, there are still a few French girls in bikinis on motor scooters.

Hotel
We have always stayed in a cottage at Le Village St. Jean. This is a very friendly, family-run place with cottages along a hillside above St. Jean Beach. Ours consisted of a decent sized bedroom, very private patio, and small kitchen on the patio. It had recently been re-done, and was very attractive. No TV. The hotel has a nice pool and a fairly large lending library. Their very good restaurant, Terrazza, closes in June so we didn’t use it this trip. It is about a 5 minute walk down the hill to St. Jean Beach. Unfortunately it is up hill coming back, and pretty steep, so we drive. The other main drawback was the mosquito population that was mainly a problem when sitting on the patio in the late afternoon. The small shop at the hotel has repellent and insecticide - very useful. We have always encountered mosquitoes on St. Barth’s. The resident cats were not very sociable, but we did have a moderate sized iguana (nicknamed “Iggy” by my wife) that wandered around the patio eating the hibiscus blossoms.

Activities
At this point the detail ends. Our objective this vacation was to take things easy, and that included not trying to keep track of what we did each day. Mostly we would drive around sightseeing, take a few photographs (not as many as usual because we already have so many), spend a while on a beach, stop in somewhere for an espresso and people-watching, and wonder where the time went. We did get to most of the beaches except Columbier. Except for St. Jean, most had few people on them. We generally do our own breakfasts and most lunches.

Restaurants
Dinners were at:
Le Piment in the St Jean shopping area – we did not have this on our list, but passed it the first afternoon and were attracted to it. The food was remarkably good for what appears to be a small local bistro, and we ate here both our first and last evenings..
Andy’s Hideaway – quite popular and perhaps our favorite. Also ate here twice – once for the seafood that we self-cooked on a hot stone (interesting experience and quite good, especially after we asked for the hot sauce to supplement the ones normally supplied) and once for the pizza, which we rate best in the Caribbean in our experience. The complementary vanilla rum is good too!
Chez Domi – our usual stop for Creole. Great hot sauce!! It was the only place where we were the only customers though.
La Route des Boucaniers – a very good octopus stew, which my wife kicked herself for not having, although her fish dish (with christophene – her favorite Caribbean vegetable) was pretty good too. Their location on the harbor adds to the ambience in the evening/
Eddy’s – also very good, though we cannot remember exactly what we had. Think my wife had grilled mahi mahi while I had another type of fish in a creole or curry sauce.

Light lunches were at Le Creperie in Gustavia, and CocoLobo Beach Bar on the beach at Grand Cul de Sac. Very pleased with both..

General comments
The island continues to build, but less obtrusively and to a lesser degree than St. Martin. Presumably this is going to be limited, as I understand there is a moratorium on new development – a good thing if the island is going to continue to retain its charm. It is, however, somewhat more expensive than St. Martin, and generally the Dollar-Euro exchange rate seemed not as good. Certainly didn’t find any place giving 1:1, but every place was willing to take dollars. Most of our shopping was for supplies. The Match Supermarket at the airport is well stocked, but the smaller one mentioned above is also pretty good. The only “souvenir” type shopping was at La Ligne St. Bart’s; a very pleasant and helpful clerk. Weather was relatively good but with a lot of cloud and haze; a downpour one evening while we were at Andy’s overflowed the rain gutters and dumped water on several of the diners. Since we were far enough away that we did not get wet we could class it as entertainment (even those who got damp seemed to take it in the same spirit) - especially since it had stopped before we left. Sunday afternoon also was a bit showery, and since many places were closed we decided that you only come this way once and so we stopped into the Nikki Beach Bar for a drink. With $7.00 beers it probably is only once (my wife amends that to once each trip), but we put it in the same category as the $13.00 iced tea and sherbet at Taiwana a number of years ago.

All in all a great trip. Total relaxation. Would we return? The answer is a resounding “yes” though perhaps not for a couple of years. We have other favorite islands that must be factored into vacation plans.