Go for the beaches
Written: May 30 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great beaches, nice people, low crime
Cons: Expensive, rather crowded
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| Tokada's Full Review: Barbados |
Barbados has terrific beaches and friendly people, but it isn't a place where you can easily get away from it all. I stayed at the Sandy Beach Hotel in St. Lawrence Gap on the south coast of the island, and found that we were right on the busy main road, surrounded by hotels, restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. This was disappointing at first -- but the beach did a lot to make up for it. It's a wide, white sand beach right on warm shallow water, and just a few yards from the hotel. It's easy to overlook the crowded strip behind you.
Barbados was one of the first British colonies in the Caribbean and was intensively developed for sugar plantations as far back as the 17th century. The result is that almost all the forest was cut down long ago, and the island doesn't have the lush, dramatic interior that places like Jamaica or St. Lucia offer. The interior is mostly rolling hills with tiny winding roads -- a bit like some counties in southwest England. Even the names are reminiscent of England, with parishes named for St. George and St. Michael. It can be a bit cloying, but the upside is that Barbados is relatively prosperous and has a big middle class, so the crime rate is very low. We walked and drove around everywhere and never felt any danger. It's well worth renting a car for a couple of days and exploring the island. But take a good map; the roads are confusing and poorly marked and it's easy to get lost amid the cane fields.
The beaches are excellent, especially on the south and west coasts. Crane Beach on the southeast coast is one of the most famous. The sand has a pinkish tinge and the water is aquamarine -- perfect. Prince Andrew is said to stay in a lavish private house overlooking Crane Beach when he comes to visit from England. There's a hotel on a cliff overlooking the west end of the beach, and a place to rent umbrellas and boogie boards at the eastern end. Nearby is an old plantation house called Jack Lord's Castle, which is worth a visit just to see how the rich people lived once upon a time. In fact, there are several plantation houses around the island that allow visitors to get a glimpse of what life was like when Barbados still lived by shipping sugar and molasses to England.
The English heritage makes Barbados quite genteel in certain ways, but it hasn't done anything for the food. Despite lots of fresh fruit and seafood, many restaurants specialize in overpriced imitations of English food, partly no doubt because of the many British tourists who still go there. In fact, most visitors are European, even though Barbados is just a couple of hours south of Miami by air. At the Sandy Beach Hotel, where I stayed, at least half the guests were British and many others were German, Italian or Canadian. Only a quarter, at most, were American. The prices are also set at European levels; nothing is cheap, including restaurants. But make sure you sample the local food -- rotis and chicken done Caribbean-style.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Tokada
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Location: DC
Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 43 members
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