Caribbean Beat — January/February 2017 (#143)

Streetscape
French Creole influence dominates Roseau’s traditional
architecture — steep-pitched roofs, intricate wooden
fretwork, shuttered jalousie windows, shady verandahs and
arcades. A handful of British Georgian-inspired buildings
are also scattered throughout the historic centre, alongside
modern structures of all descriptions, some borrowing
traditional decorative elements. Though central Roseau is laid
out on a more or less regular grid, the narrow streets and tiny
blocks can give the impression of a labyrinth, with surprises
round every corner. It is notoriously easy for visitors to get
lost, especially in the area known as the French Quarter. The
Old Market, now a pedestrianised square, is still the city’s
central point, marked by a red-painted cross.
Just west of central Roseau, the dense warren of streets
gives way to the Botanical Gardens, founded in 1890, and
long considered one of the Caribbean’s finest. Apart from
the collection of trees and other plants from across the
tropical world, this is the headquarters for the conservation
programme protecting Dominica’s two rare endemic parrot
species, the sisserou and the jacko.
Co-ordinates
15.3º N 61.4º W
Sea level
Roseau
DOMINICA
Venturing out
As befits the capital of the Caribbean’s “Nature Isle”, Roseau is surrounded
by green — a backdrop of precipitous hills and mountains. Less than five
miles from the centre of the city are the twin Trafalgar Falls, with cold and hot
cascades (the latter volcanically heated) plunging side by side. There’s a hiking
trail, a viewing platform for photos, and natural rock pools for swimming and
splashing.
Or, heading south instead of west, a five-mile drive will take you to the
village of Scotts Head, near Dominica’s southern tip — gateway to the
Soufrière–Scotts Head Marine Reserve, one of the Caribbean’s most famous
dive sites. A dive, snorkel, or swim over Champagne Reef is one of Dominica’s
unmissable experiences. Vents in the sea floor release a continuous fizz of
volcanic gases, heating the water to bathtub temperature and creating a
natural Jacuzzi effect.
Holger Wulschlaeger / shutterstock.com
The Rhys tour
The writer Jean Rhys — born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams — may be
Dominica’s most celebrated child of the soil, even though she left the island at
the age of seventeen and spent her life elsewhere. Her childhood Roseau home,
a wooden house on the corner of Independence Street and Cork Street, still
stands, slightly battered-looking. Elsewhere in the city, you can visit St George’s
Anglican Church, where Rhys was christened, and the site of the convent school
near the Roman Catholic cathedral which Rhys attended (and described in her
novel Wide Sargasso Sea).
arun madisetti / images dominica
Caribbean Airlines operates regular flights to V.C. Bird
International Airport in Antigua, with connections on other
airlines to Dominica
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 89