Well….. it wasn’t the best day to make our first visit to Martinique perhaps….. The weather was frankly tropical with brilliant sunshine for quite long periods, then broken up by a torrential downpour that lasted perhaps 5 minutes….. And I mean a really torrential downpour…..

At one point we got caught in one and had to take shelter under a shop awning….

As usual for this trip we were on the dock at about 8am and we sailed at around 6pm, so a nice long day in port. And the cruise ship docked right in the centre of Fort De France, so an easy walk into town. Martinique is a full departement of France. Legally as French as Bordeaux. I spent some time puzzling over whether we Brits missed a trick here and should have made our imperial colonies counties of the UK as per the French example rather than give them independence as we have done….. Some pros and cons I guess. I couldn’t decide.

The other bad thing about the visit today apart from the weather was of course the day itself ie Dimanche…Sunday…… just like the rest of France……. everything or 99.9% of everything was ferme… closed…… The Americans were very puzzled and frankly bewildered by this…. what sort of place shuts its doors against 3000+ eager to spend their money tourists..???? We Brits, more used to the ways of our near neighbours, had a quick trot round and then got back on board, wallets intact.

Fort de France was probably once a lovely place and frankly no doubt looks a lot better when all the shops aren’t barricaded shut. However, it is horribly scarred by the horror that is post 20th century French architecture ie the worship of concrete and strangely hideous design. How a country that for centuries built some of the most exquisite buildings in the world has come to this is a mystery, but it is undoubtedly true. The French have for the last 100 odd years built utter monstrosities. Here’s a case in point perfectly illustrated in Fort de France: The Hotel de Ville.

Here is the beautiful Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) from the Imperial era

And here is its modern replacement, just for emphasis it was built right next door

Or how about this lovely old building

Which now faces onto

I rest my case entirely……

We had a nice fuddle around the closed up town. There were a few beggars. The first we’ve seen in the Caribbean.

The old cathedral was very lovely and there was a service underway. We popped in for a little while and listened to the singing. It was packed.

There were some nice little streets, some lovely old buildings, a square but mainly it wasn’t picturesque at all.

Still, it was nice to be able to moor up right in town and be the only ship in port. I managed to get a couple of shots of the ship at last

We spent the rest of the day around the pool lapping up the sun and occasionally making a tent out of towels to escape the sharp cloudbursts. It was very nice though. Tonight was a big one for the Americans onboard as it was the playoffs for the Superbowl and both games were broadcast on big screens around the ship. Very avidly followed on board and it was impressive to see so many people stand up when the National Anthem was played at the start of the match, not only in the stadiums but also all around the areas where the games were televised. Much more respect shown than would have been the case in a British event sad to say.