Martinique: Watching Rum Being Made & Visiting the Former Capital Destroyed by Lava

March 29, 2019

MARTINIQUE ISLAND, France – I toured a rum distillery and the island’s former capital, wiped out during a devastating 1902 volcanic eruption, during my first visit to this overseas state of France.

Got up at 8:40 a.m. aboard Costa Pacifica docked at Fort-de-France. Went up to Deck 9 to grab breakfast, then got ready for my shore excursion, “St. Pierre & Rum.”

Martinique, population 396,000, is the fourth port of call on my 17-night Caribbean and trans-Atlantic cruise. It’s my first time here. One would think I could count this as a new territory visited, but no – Martinique is a state of France (like Hawaii is of the USA).

My excursion left the port at 9:40 and we drove 20 minutes on the N3 expressway to our first stop, Balata Church, perched atop a hill overlooking Fort-de-France.

We continued to Morne Rouge, the highest village on Martinique at 2,165 feet, and then to the Depaz Rum distillery. I got to watch sugar cane being processed into juice using a steam engine.

There were signs explaining different steps of the rum-making process, but no guided tour, which would have been helpful to better understand what I was watching. I looked at the fermentation tanks and oak barrels used to age the finished product.

Processing Sugar Cane into Juice at the Depaz Rum Factory on Martinique Island

Unfortunately the self-guided tour didn’t include the bottling plant, which I would have loved to have seen. Ended up in the shop, where tiny samples were offered for free.

We spent 50 minutes at the distillery, then proceeded to nearby St. Pierre on the northwest coast, which was the capital of Martinique until a 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelee wiped out the town and its 30,000 inhabitants. Only a few prisoners, locked in a stone dungeon, survived. Today it’s home to about 5,000.

Many ruins from 1902 remain.

Made one last stop at a viewpoint, then it was about a 45-minute drive back to the Port of Fort-de-France. My excursion ended at 2:18 p.m.

I reboarded Costa Pacifica, ate lunch at the buffet, then laid down for a nap at 3:47 and didn’t wake up until 8:00. Watched TiVo, ate dinner, watched sail-away, and posted the last batches of today’s photos.

Started winding down at 10 p.m., reading the cruise newsletter and packing for tomorrow’s shore excursion at our fifth port of call, Guadeloupe, another overseas state of France. Tomorrow’s tour meets at 8:15 a.m. Ugh, why so ridiculously early?!

Bed at 11:57 p.m. as we sail 118 miles from Martinique to Guadeloupe.