Soufrière

Soufrière was the French capital of St. Lucia, founded in 1746 on a bay of the west coast, and it kept the two things that mattered when the capital moved: the volcano and the view. Just south of the town the Pitons rise straight from the sea — Petit Piton and Gros Piton, two volcanic plugs of seven hundred metres and more, the most recognized silhouette in the Caribbean, listed by UNESCO in 2004 — and just east of it the Sulphur Springs steam and bubble in a collapsed crater that the island, with a straight face, calls the world's only drive-in volcano. Between them lie cocoa estates, hot waterfalls and a mineral bath built for the soldiers of Louis XVI.

The traveller wakes to the Pitons from any window that has them; climbs Gros Piton with a guide in the cool of the morning, four hours up and down for the view over the whole south; bathes in the warm mud of the Sulphur Springs and rinses under the hot cascade; walks the Diamond botanical garden to its mineral falls; snorkels the reef at Anse Chastanet, where the drop-off starts a few strokes from the sand; visits a cocoa estate to make a bar from the bean; and eats fish on the waterfront at dusk, when the peaks go violet.

The Guide's honesty: Soufrière's waterfront has its hustlers, and an official guide's badge is worth checking before agreeing to anything — the Gros Piton climb requires one by rule, and the fee is fair —; the road from Castries is ninety minutes of hairpins and worth every one, but not after dark; the town is modest and the resorts on the ridges are not, and the town's guesthouses and rum shops are where the island actually is; the mud is sulphurous and stains swimwear; and the Pitons are, from every angle, as good as the pictures.