Martinique: Fort-de-France – Exploring the City

Fort-de-France is the capital of Martinique and one of the largest towns in the entire French Caribbean. The historic old city is quite compact, a grid of streets near the sea, framed by a fort on one side and mountains on the back. The city has a lot of old historic colonial and creole architecture buildings, many brightly painted, some rather warmed out and crumbling – it’s great just roaming around the streets and explaining it all. There is also a great central market and a cathedral (next posts). The city has a very rocky history, having suffered destruction from earthquakes, fires, battles, and hurricanes – in 1839 an earthquake nearly razed the city down, in 1890 a massive fire nearly burned everything down, and in 1902 a powerful hurricane nearly wiped everything out. I guess, you can still feel this weathered and exhausted look of the city when walking around.
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