Castries

Castries sits in a harbor of green hills like a coin in a cupped palm, and holds two Nobel prizes for a town of sixty thousand — both statues wait in the square named for one of them, Derek Walcott, who wrote the sea here into world literature. Fires took her old wooden grandeur more than once; the market, the square and the saffron-colored cathedral carry what remains, with grace.

The sensible traveller comes on Saturday: the Castries market in full voice — cocoa sticks, cinnamon brooms, green figs, bananas in six sizes —, the cathedral's painted interior next door, and a minute of shade with Walcott in his square. Then the island insists southward: Marigot Bay's absurd prettiness, the Pitons rising like green teeth, and the drive-in volcano's mud baths at Soufrière.

The Guide's honesty: Castries is a working port, not a resort — her charm is commerce, so come when commerce sings: mornings —; the north's beaches host the hotels, but the island's soul lives south on the Soufrière road: budget the day, stomach the curves; and green fig and saltfish is the national dish for good reason — order it before the fried chicken finds you.