As to the latter condition, we had heard at least a couple of times before that there were actually more monkeys on the island than people! I really wouldn't be able to dispute or reinforce that claim based on my own observations, however, I can say that there are a lot of the little devils running around (the monkeys, not the people; the people were very friendly!). In fact, below is the obligatory "Monkey Shot" which every tourist seems to get so I will just post it here in the beginning to get it out of the way.
So what is there to do on St. Kitts? Well, maybe one way to answer this is to tell you what we didn't do. In this case, we decided not to take the train tour of the island since we didn't want to be locked into a trip lasting for several hours, though this is one of the biggest tourist attractions on the island. At the same time, while we wanted to make Romney Manor (the largest and most well-known plantation on the island) our first stop, we soon discovered that the place was just packed with other tourists. While it was a beautiful drive up the hill to see this place, we could not find a parking space for even our little car and we didn't have a huge amount of time to spend on the island anyway.
For that reason, we decided to move on to Brimstone Hill, which is probably the most notable attraction on St. Kitts. On the way, however, we made a little stop to see the Anglican Church pictured below. As you can see, from the outside this church looks like it may be abandoned, though since we saw a couple people working outside it we decided to stop.
Peering inside, I expected to see large sections of the roof to be missing and the interior of the church to be a haven for wildlife living amongst tall grass. Instead, this is what we saw:
Over the last several hundred years, it seems like the cash-strapped parish made a wise choice in the upkeep of their church: when it came to a decision to either spend money on the roof or in maintaining the masonry transepts on either side of the church entrance, they chose to spend it on the roof. For that reason, while major chunks of the outside have literally fallen into heaps, the inside has remained completely useable.
So, that little bit of building maintenance illustrated, it was time to move on to a much more formidable installation: the Fortress on Brimstone Hill. A major outpost of the British for many years, eventually it came under attack by the French. After 8,000 French troops laid siege to it for weeks on end, however, the British were finally forced to surrender. Today, it flies under the flag of St. Kitts, though the British still maintain a connection with the site for obvious historic reasons.
Getting to the fortress atop Brimstone Hill was quite a little drive on narrow switchback "roads" and through very narrow passageways that gradually bring you to the top of the hill. Once there, you can stop at the visitors center and go to the Citadel on top (after the $12 per person entry fee, which in this case was well worth it!). As you can see, this location offers a spectacular view of both the mountains and the sea below while also providing a well-preserved and accessible piece of history. We spent a couple of hours there and would have spent more time, except this place doesn't know the meaning of the word "handicap accessible" so after a while it can get tiring to climb all over this thing.
After Brimstone Hill, we elected to continue our clockwise circular tour of the island on one of St. Kitt's only major roads. This was a very pleasant drive with terrific scenery that allowed us to at least get some sense of the island. At the end of our drive we wanted to end up at the beach to spend a couple hours, though this section of road is one we encountered on the way there:
Might your car get pelted or even crushed by falling rocks on the way to the island's most well-known beaches? Well...I can say we made it through with no problem and certainly hundreds if not thousands of cars go through this same pass every month without incident, but it does give you pause when you see this!
The beach we found was somewhat unremarkable, though still pleasant enough, and after a couple hours there it was time to head back to the ship. First, however, I wanted to check out the Marriott in St. Kitts, which is one of the few resorts to be found on the island. In summary, I was quite impressed with this resort, despite the fact that I was initially skeptical. I came away feeling that I could definitely recommend this place to anyone without reservation (though I should note: you will probably want to make a reservation in advance to stay there!), however, I want to stress that this is not the "quiet, getting away from it all" type of resort like the Anse Chastanet in St. Lucia. Instead, we are talking about a resort that is almost as full-featured as a high-rise resort without quite making it to the scale of something you would see in Cancun, for example. Its clear that the folks at Marriott pushed the people of St. Kitts about as far as they were willing to go in terms of the size of this resort, though the end result does not feel totally out of place with the small scale that is prevalent on St. Kitts.
With this little detour out of the way, however, it was time to get aboard the ship for one last stop before we headed home...
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