Saint Barthélemy

Our stunning beach, Anse des Flamands

Our French Caribbean adventure continued in the neighboring island of Saint Barth. This whole trip was really planned around our desire to stay at a hotel here called Cheval Blanc. We’ve stayed at two Cheval Blanc hotels previously — in Paris and in Saint-Tropez — and they are extraordinary places.

Our resort was connected by boardwalks through jungle

We had one dinner at a beautiful restaurant in a dazzling jungle setting

The Cheval Blanc hotels are owned by the French luxury brand juggernaut, LVMH. This is a splurgy place on a gorgeous beach called Anse des Flamands. It is staffed by armies of young, beautiful people, almost exclusively from France.

Saint Barth is a stunningly beautiful island. It’s also known as a playground for very wealthy people, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side that means there are some really nice resorts — and an endless supply of high quality restaurants to choose from. We ate very well here, but we actually tire easily of overly “fancy” restaurants with crazy prices.

The rich party crowd apparently also likes restaurants and clubs with a lot of noise. A couple we met in Saint-Martin told us about a couple restaurants we needed to go to, which apparently turn into pounding music venues as the evening goes on. That sounds like hell to us, so we carefully tried to stick to calmer choices.

I was kind of fascinated, if somewhat repulsed, by the people-watching in a place like this. You see parents with such over-privileged children that it’s hard to imagine these kids not being really messed up. And then you have the guys with trophy wives that they’ll eventually get bored with. And people coming out of designer boutiques loaded up with bags of flashy clothes. It’s fun to watch for a few days. But it makes us feel very, well, normal?

We loved the gorgeous beach here. And watching the scene. And five days was just enough. And now it’s nice to return to New York, and leave this beautiful shallowness behind.

The weather is mostly perfect. But most days deliver a brief rainfall, followed by a gorgeous rainbow.

Lunch in the main town of Gustavia, overlooking a harbor full of yachts and mega-yachts

…and the moment when the weather suddenly turns bad for a few minutes!

Our hotel is owned by the French luxury giant LVMH. So they had an evening reception to promote one of their fashion brands, Bulgari. People were trying on necklaces covered in diamonds at god-only-knows what kind of cost (Hundreds of thousands? Millions?). It was fun to witness, but we did not buy anything.