St. Lucia: Historic Island Tour
The Historic Island Tour is a three hour bus tour that leaves at 9am. It is a $59 tour that cost me $9 after the $50 shore excursion credit.
I’m guessing there are about 200 people in line for the tour.
They broke us into smaller groups at the shuttles.
Ana was our tour guide and Edmond was our driver.
St. Lucia is 238 square miles with a population of 180 thousand.
They pyramid is the French institute which teaches French.
This is the All In which celebrated St. Lucia’s 40th independence anniversary.
The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception is a cathedral built in 1897.
This is the police station.
The oldest tree on the island is 400 years old.
The Central Library
Our first stop is St. Marks. We have 20 minutes here.
St. Marks is a 150 year old colonial house that used to be the home of priests.
Upstairs is a private residence so it is roped off.
The wood is mahogany from Honduras.
The crystal is from France and Belgium.
This painting is a village we’ll visit later.
They had plantain chips and rum punch for us.
We are back on the road.
This is an old military barracks area.
We didn’t stop at this museum.
Our next stop is Howelton Estate which is a 122 year old building. We have 30 minutes here.
This artist does this batik wax art. Each piece takes 9-12 days.
These are the stages.
I think this clothing is decorated with the wax.
We are back on the road. This is an old army hospital that is now apartments.
This is an old powder storage facility. It is the oldest building on the island.
Our next stop is a photo stop of Margiot Bay. Dr. Doolittle was filmed there.
Bananas took over the # 1 export here in the 1960s since bananas grow year round and sugar cane is seasonal. They make everything banana here. They even have banana ketchup.
Our last planned stop is Ancillary fishing village. This is the village from the painting in the first house. The population is 6 thousand. We have 15-20 minutes.
We are heading back to the ship.
But we got a flat tire.
Our driver spent half an hour trying to break the lugnuts loose.
Finally someone who had a better tool stopped to help.
Once they were loose he took off and our driver finished up. We were stuck here for 1 hour.
This is another port. It’s the one Mein Schiff 2 is docked at.
That’s the end of the tour. We had some nice view points but I wasn’t happy about being stuck on the side of the road for an hour.
