Fort-de-France, Martinique

Martinique is not a Caribbean country with French influence — it is legally part of France, an overseas department and a region of the European Union. The currency is the euro, the road signs are metropolitan French, and the supermarkets carry the same brands as Lyon. For a group, that also means less English is spoken here than almost anywhere else on a Caribbean itinerary.

Mount Pelée dominates the north of the island. In May 1902 it erupted and destroyed Saint-Pierre, then the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the Caribbean, killing around 30,000 people in minutes. The ruins are still there — a theatre, a jail cell, foundations — and the town rebuilt around them at a fraction of its old size.

Martinique makes rhum agricole, distilled from fresh pressed sugar cane juice rather than molasses, under a French appellation d’origine contrôlée. It tastes markedly different from Caribbean molasses rum, and the distilleries in the north — Depaz, at the foot of Pelée, and Clément in the south — run proper tours.

The beaches are in the south, around Les Anses d’Arlet and Sainte-Anne, roughly 45 minutes from the port. Fort-de-France itself is a working French city rather than a resort town, which is the appeal for some groups and the drawback for others.

Warm and humid, 26–31°C. The dry season, known locally as carême, runs December to April. Hurricane season June to November.