Explore the French Caribbean on a Martinique vacation! An overseas department of France, Martinique is located in the Lesser Antilles, nestled between Dominica and St. Lucia. The island combines beautiful beaches and bays with lush rainforests and mountains, quiet fishing villages and colorful culture. Mixing French and Creole flavors and with a history influenced by famous figures ranging from Napoleon to Columbus to Aime Césaire, Martinique also has a rich history.

Day 1: Bonjour Martinique! Bonjour Fort De France!

Welcome to Martinique! Check in at your 4-Star charming West-Indies style hotel located in the resort area of Pointe-du-Bout. You’re staying beachside along the Fort-de-France bay. The hotel has rooms and suites, all with balconies or patios, two restaurants, a cocktail bar, two tennis courts, a swimming pool, beach and water sports facilities.

Day 2: Fort De France

Embark on a morning tour of the capital of Martinique, Fort De France. At 50 miles long and 22 miles across at its widest point, Martinique is the third largest island in the Lesser Antilles, and most of the island’s residents, totaling around 400,000, live in the capital city. Hear about its fascinating and unexpected French and Caribbean history and culture, with stops at the following points of interests:

La Savane
Schoelcher library (outside)
Le Malecon Boardwalk
Fort Saint Louis The cove
Aimé Césaire museum to learn about the most influential Francophile Caribbean writer of his generation
Former Palais de Justice (Hall of Justice)
Covered market: taste some tropical fruits and local products (Included) directly from the producers’ stalls and check out the spices, flowers and homemade liquors at this market that dates back to 1885

After your discovery of Fort De France landmarks, head to Le Prêcheur (45 min), a charming fishing village. Check out the village and enjoy a jump in the ocean here if you wish.

Visit Habitation Céron, a former sugar cane plantation and estate that dates from 1658. This eco-friendly tourist site located on the outskirts of scenic Le Prêcheur and offers discovery trail itineraries though majestic gardens and rivers. Its sugar and cassava refinery ruins are still standing, a testament to the island’s remarkable history. Nestled between Martinique’s majestic mountains, fine volcanic black sand beaches, and rivers, the estate backs up against an Integral Biological Reserve. At Habitation Céron, cocoa trees are regularly planted as part of the revival of the cocoa production in Martinique.

Habitation Céron is not just a restaurant and an old sugar factory, it is also a remarkable garden, where culture, history, gastronomy, fauna and flora of Martinique come together.

Walk in the garden
Discover the Zamana, a 300-year old tree named 2016 Tree of the year
The river
The sugar factory ruins
The crawfish pond

Enjoy lunch at Habitation Ceron at their restaurant overlooking the river with hammocks and swings for children!

The Chef picks, presses, cuts, ferments, mixes, associates, fruits, vegetables, wild herbs, spices, textures to offer you a cuisine that is lively, respectful, in motion, and most importantly: an original and delicious Caribbean cuisine.

Day 3: Cooking Class, the Pompeii of the Caribbean & Rum Tasting

Morning tour: Martinique natural wonders. Depart from your hotel to Balata Garden. Created in 1982 by horticulturalist Jean-Philippe Thoze, whose family owned the property, the gardens opened to the public in 1986. Walk amid the treetops on swinging bridges and observe thousands of diverse tropical plants and hundreds of species of palm trees. Back at the Creole style main house with its period furnishings, make sure to take the time to watch the hummingbirds.

Continue just a few minutes to Saint Pierre, which has been coined the little Pompeii of the Caribbean. The former capital of Martinique, it was completely destroyed in 1902 by the eruption of Mt Pelée, which overlooks the city.

Today Saint Pierre is principally a tourist center with shops and restaurants of every variety. Completely rebuilt upon the ruins of its former self, the city demonstrates the wrought iron balconies and Persian adorned entrances that are considered characteristic of the architecture of early 1900s. By getting off the beaten track and keeping a careful eye out, you can still find forgotten remnants of the former city such as ruined walls.

Darley explores the ruins in Saint Pierre

Rum Distillery tour: Tasting rum at sunset

Just as wine lovers visit France to savor the best of French wine while traveling along La Route des Vins, rum connoisseurs head to Martinique to experience some of the world’s finest rums by traveling La Route des Grands Rhums

For four centuries, at the foot of Mont Pelee and at the edge of the bay of Saint-Pierre (in Martinique), the “Mountain Plantation” produces the island’s finest sugar cane: an exceptional climate, abundant mountain spring water, volcanic soils and human dedication- these are the secrets of Depaz rum (or similar).

On the Depaz estate, the sugar canes draw their richness from the young high-quality soils created from the ashes of the 1902 eruption. The exceptional exposure on the flanks of the Mount Pelée, abundant sunshine, buffeting from trade winds and the free-draining volcanic soil all favour the accumulation of sugar in the canes.

Enjoy some rum tastings while the sun sets.

Spend some time on own at the Carbet beach before heading back to your hotel, where you can enjoy dinner on your own.

Day 4- Martinique History

Martinique is truly a melting pot and today, you’ll learn more of its history at La Savane des Esclaves, the Slave Savannah.

Created by local Gilbert Larose, who is passionate about keeping island ancestry and traditions alive, Slave Savannah contains historical and recreated artifacts, medicinal and organic vegetable gardens, livestock, and a series of slave huts, placing the traveler back in a 19th century slave village. Each small hut may have housed an entire family, who would depend on their own subsistence growth and herbal medicines to survive. Visitors are transported through the hard and horrific lives slaves faced from their capture from their homeland and transfer to Martinique through their daily work on plantations and eventual freedom.

Some highlights of your visit may include: Cassava making, the museum, maroon house and gardens.

Continue to the Village de la Poterie (The Pottery village)

Located on a former Jesuit monastery and later a sugar plantation, the Pottery Village dates back to the 18th century and is today a place where travelers can meet modern artists and gain an unique appreciation for the red clay soil that’s transformed this part of the island.

Meet many skilled craftsmen and women, and enjoy shopping for ceramics, jewels, souvenirs and wood furniture. On some visits, you may enjoy pottery making demonstrations and a performance by the Hommes d’argile, the Clay Men group, who perform a sort of ballet with clay.

Check in at your boutique, artsy hotel for the next part of your stay. Owned by an art collector and with a stunning pool overlooking the Fort de France Bay and top restaurant, this is a unique accommodation where guests say they feel at home in Martinique.

Day 5: Atlantic Coast Adventures

Head to Le Robert, on the western coast of Martinique, the Atlantic side of the island this morning for a sailing and snorkeling excursion. Enjoy the stunning waters of the Atlantic Coast of the island, meet iguanas on Ilet Chancel, discover Ilet Madame and go snorkeling in crystal clear waters.

Habitation Clement: some local rum, called “rhum” in Martinique, plantation tour and local art and traditions. Habitation Clement is a historic sugarcane plantation and rum distillery, where rhum agricole production dates back over 125 years. Martinique is known for its varieties of rhum agricole, which is rhum produced with fresh sugarcane juice as opposed to molasses.

In addition to the cellars and a museum, Habitation Clement’s grounds are like an open air art gallery, with sculptures on display amid stunning trees and contemporary art housed in modern galleries, but a centerpiece of this estate is the main home, the only Creole building recognized as a French historical monument in Martinique. World leaders including President George H.W. Bush have visited and held meetings in this stunning open-air home.

Day 6: Au Revoir Martinique!

Head back to the airport in Fort de France to travel home.

Martinique Vacation Itinerary in the French Caribbean