So much more to than rum and Rihanna
JET2HOLIDAYS offers seven nighs at the three-star
Kefalonitis Hotel Apartments, Paphos Resort, Cyprus.
Departing from Newcastle on April 22, this self-catering break is priced £369 per person – based on two sharing, including a 22kg baggage allowance and return transfers.
Visit jet2holidays.com, freephone 0800 408 5594, or visit your travel agent.
GO ALL-IN FOR THE MALDIVES
HAYES & Jarvis (01293 762 456, hayesandjarvis.co.uk) is offering a week-long holiday to the Maldives from £2,199 per person.
This price includes seven nights at the five-star Atmosphere Kanifushi, on an all-inclusive basis and return flights from London Gatwick. Based on May 14 departures.
MADEIRA IN BLOOM
VISITORS to Madeira are in for a treat when the island bursts into bloom this spring.
The spectacular Madeira Flower Festival runs from April 30 to May 24 and features a host of exhibitions, floral carpets, parades and concerts.
Focus for much of the action on the island – dubbed “the floating garden” – centres on capital city Funchal.
Organisers hail the event as “a tribute to spring as homage is paid to flowers”.
Find out more about the colourful event at madeiraallyear.com
HEAD TO COURCHEVEL
IGLU SKI (igluski.com; 0203 811 6381) offers a seven-night holiday to Courchevel, in France staying at Chalet Benjamin from £879pp (was £1,359pp) (catered) based on two sharing.
Price includes flights from Stansted to Grenoble and transfers. Valid for travel on March 21.
AN OPEN palm lands on my back, splattering paint over what was once a clean white shirt. Soon, another palm smudges itself against my cheek, turning the side of my face a luminous shade.
All around me, the scene repeats endlessly, as paint coats the clothes and skins of the thicket of revellers.
What could be perceived as hostile gestures in some parts of the world are laughed off and, indeed, encouraged here.
I spot a nearby bucket, douse my own hand with paint and smear the face of the stranger next to me, as the first warm, fat raindrops begin to fall.
This happy little scene, set against thumping, calypso-inspired soca music and copious amounts of rum, plays out in the small hours of the morning at the Fore-Day Morning ‘Jump Up’ – an all-night street party stretching until 7am (yes, seven in the morning) in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados.
Fore-Day Morning is prominent among the near endless list of street parties, fetes and food and drink markets that bring the curtain down on the Caribbean island’s annual Crop Over Festival.
Celebrating the end of the yearly sugar cane harvest, the foundations of which root back to sugar cane plantations during slavery more than two centuries ago, Crop Over has mushroomed into Barbados’ biggest national festival – the Caribbean equivalent of Carnival in Brazil, I’m told more than once.
Revived and revamped into its current format in the mid-1970s, Crop Over kicks off in June and runs until the first Monday in August, culminating with the Grand Kadooment Day street parade, in which more than 20 bands lead hundreds of people dressed in carnival costume.
A week in Barbados allowed me to, quite literally, drink in the final week of Crop Over, skipping from champagne breakfast parties, late-evening jamborees and traditional food markets and festivals before the Grand Kadooment – the jewel in the festival’s crown, which featured a guest appearance and a blessing from the island’s most famous export, Rihanna.
Yet I found the spirit of Crop Over captured best at Fore-Day Morning, a sense of fun, fellowship and joie de vivre that I had simply not experienced back in Britain.
Here, Barbadians (call the locals Bajans while you’re in town), a melting pot of nationalities from the many neighbouring Caribbean islands and the world at large were tethered inexorably together by music, dance and punch.
What began 25 years ago as a small gathering has snowballed into a party of more than 15,000 revellers, powered by the 1,500-strong Jambalassie Foreday Morning Band.
The Fore-Day Morning is an all-air outdoor march, and time melted away as my feet danced through the streets of Bridgetown.
Ahead of me, a man perched atop a mountain of speakers, which themselves sat on an enormous, slowly trundling truck, held a microphone to his lips, unrelenting in his desire to unite the throng.
I’d heard and seen this before, and had come to welcome it as the refrain of Crop Over: days before, during a breakfast party at the gorgeous, centuries-old George Washington House, tucked away in the south-east of the island, the message had been loud and clear.
“I want you to do one thing for me right now,” barked the DJ, catching the eye in a loud yellow suit.
“If you’re standing with your best friend, throw your arms around and tell them that you love them right now!”
Next came the inclusive refrain that, to my mind, immortalised the spirit of Crop Over. “I want you to high-five the person standing next to you right now! Hug that person!
“It don’t matter if you’ve never seen this person before!”
Quaffing fizz and sweet spirits in the small hours, and when daylight had barely broken, formed only a small part of the trip, however.
On guided tours, visits to historical landmarks, restaurant trips and a cruise aboard a catamaran, I found an island rich in history and culture, underpinned by a distinctly British heritage.
I marvelled at St. Nicholas Abbey, in Saint Peter, in the north of the island, one of only three mansions from the Jacobean era still standing on the planet.
At the heart of the abbey is the plantation house itself, built more than 350 years ago, alongside a museum, distillery and steam mill that continues to this day to churn out rum, using machinery imported from Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria.
From there, we went on to the abbey’s newly opened Heritage Railway, which twists through the plantation’s grounds and woodlands, revealing the island’s birds and wildlife.
Stepping from the train after a 45-minute guided tour, I gaped in awe at the stunning views over Cherry Tree Hill which borders the parishes of both Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. The resulting photographs were stunning but, like the island itself, it really is a sight that must be seen with one’s own eyes.
Home for the week was The
Sands, a stunning new-built hotel complex in Christ Church, near the southern tip of the island, and where the duplex I stayed in was just a 30-second walk from the beach and gorgeous blue sea.
In Barbados all beaches are public and tourists and locals mingle as they catch a tan, swim, surf, or play games in the sand.
“Simon says ‘Hello,’ to me sometimes,” our guide informed us, meaning Cowell, obviously.
Food was another huge plus in Barbados, with plenty to sample in the mixture of Portuguese, African, Indian, Creole, Irish and, of course, British influencing local cuisine. At Primo, a bar and bistro on the coast – a mere five-minute drive from our hotel – I enjoyed tuna that snapped me out of my jet lag; lunch at the Crane in nearby Saint Philip offered jaw-dropping views over the beautiful Crane Beach, and at Ocean Two, a stodgy but immensely satisfying lamb stew served in breadfruit left me sprawled on the sand.
Sitting on top of all this beautiful food was the island’s liquid speciality... rum.
At St. Nicholas Abbey, we