Spend the holidays ad Antigua e Barbuda it was the best gift I could have given myself, especially because I am passionate about scuba diving and I love nature.
Le beaches paradisiacal of the Carribean Sea, evoke the beaches and places of pirates, and a taste of adventure and obviously of holidays, which can be experienced lying in the sun on the white beaches, swimming on coral bottoms or strolling inland.
- Holidays in Antigua and Barbuda useful tips and information
- Antigua what to see and places to visit
- Barbuda what to see and places to visit
- Photo gallery Antigua and Barbuda
Holidays in Antigua and Barbuda useful tips and information
But let's move on to my travel story ad Antigua e Barbuda.
Departure on Friday 12 March afternoon from Milan Malpensa, stopover in London, and on Saturday morning departure for Antigua.
We arrive there at about 12.30 (they are 5 hours behind Spain).
As soon as I go down a hot wind makes me breathless as I had left Milan (and then London) which was raining and it was very cold, which is why I was all covered.
America Coast to CoastThe airport is very small and I immediately notice that there are no windows and there are no doors, everything is open (at the moment it seemed strange to me, then over time I will understand that everything has its own logic!).
Before leaving the airport, you must register your entry, where you go, what you do, how long you stay, etc. in an office.
I collect the bags and outside there is a taxi waiting for us to go in hotel.
During the journey I look curiously at the view, the houses are very small, entirely made of wood, very colorful, without glass on the windows, some even without doors, everything seems so poor that I wonder what happens to the money they get from tourism.
We arrive at the hotel after about 20 minutes of walking, the roads are paved but full of holes and bumpy.
Sidewalks don't even know what they are.
THEhotels it is wonderful, surrounded by crazy vegetation, colorful flowers, palm trees, succulents as big as houses, colorful birds, lizards (large and small), all overlooking a wonderful lagoon with an incredible sea, a blue sky that seemed to be in Eden.
Arrived at the classic hotel, welcome cocktail and go to your room to unpack.
In the meantime, the travel fatigue had magically disappeared, leaving room for curiosity and enthusiasm.
I quickly put on my swimsuit and sarong and sling in white sand beach, a palm tree sideways (grown very crooked) and a blue water like I had never seen.
I enter the water and find that it is warm.
I go back to the hotel, take a quick shower and go out.
Outside the beautiful hotel the landscape changes, I immediately realize the great poverty that exists but it is not a suffered poverty it is a different poverty in the sense that they are obviously not modern like us.
Antigua what to see and places to visit
We immediately take a taxi that takes us to the capital St. John, not very big, with little shops selling all the same things, souvenirs, fruit and costumes, just right for the tourists.
The center is a little more modern than the rest of the city and the island, it is full of men who offer you sightseeing tours of the island, there is a large port where there were gigantic cruise ships (so to speak those that do Caribbean cruises) and, on the street, women offer to make you the typical hairstyles with braids or other.
After the capital they take us to see the "Devil's Bridge”Which is a cliff where the sea has eroded the rock forming a bridge (the bridge) on which the waves are thrown, an impression, I would not have gone through it even if they had paid me.
On the way we passed through several tiny villages, all with their little houses, their churches (I have no idea how many types of churches there were ... I'm not an expert, but priests get married there!), Schools (every school has a uniform for his pupils, so from how a child is dressed, you can understand which school he belongs to!).
We have been toEnglish Harbor, the most important port of Antigua (beautiful, the taxi driver said it is considered the most beautiful port in the world, I don't know what to say maybe sponsored his island.
Passing from one village to another there are the typical sugar cane mills, which are now unused because this activity has been lost over time.
The tour between stops, photos, etc. lasts about 4 hours but I am already very excited because I found a place so different from where I live that it unleashed within me an incredible desire to know, ask, look and photograph.
Instead of going to the beach I booked a catamaran ride and I spent one of the funniest days of the week, the crew was so much fun I did snorkeling for the first time in my life and I saw some beautiful fish, all colored and I danced the merengue.
We all did the tour of the island (8 hours in total between stops, barbecue, snorkeling, swimming on a beautiful beach), I saw the tail of a whale (I never thought in my life to see a whale, I saw the barracuda - horrible -, a huge jellyfish ... that has stuck to my uncle!) and, finally, I saw Eric Clapton's beach house (useless detail).
Barbuda what to see and places to visit
I spent another beautiful day in BARBUDA.
The island is totally different from Antigua, it is flat, without hills (as there were in Antigua) and with a unique beach that runs along the entire coast (while in Antigua there are many tiny beaches interspersed with strips of land or rocks).
The sand is white like talcum powder, the sea, if possible, even more transparent than that of Antigua.
In all there are 15.000 inhabitants, there are no paved roads, and people live on fishing and fruit, there is very little tourism (apart from the mega hotel in Krizia) precisely because there is really nothing apart from the sea and the sand. .
A Barbuda some fishermen made us get on their boats and took us to see the mangroves and the nests of the frigate birds (tropical birds), ugly I would say, they look like giant crows, these birds migrate throughout the year to the Pacific.
To see in Barbuda is the beach with the pink sand; it is a show that I will never forget.
What struck me most about this trip is the people, their simplicity in life, how different they are from ours, yet they live serene, with a tranquility (bordering on excess) that would be unthinkable here.
Photo gallery Antigua and Barbuda
