When visiting Guadeloupe, we recommend three hotels. Our favorite is the Sofitel (but it is pricey). So our next suggestion would be the Creole Beach. We have stayed there a dozen times and have never been disappointed. A great find for the more budget conscious is the Arwak Hotel. All three are located in Gosier.
Here is a great article giving an overview of Guadeloupe which will help orient you:
In Guadeloupe, French, Beach Spoken Here - By PAUL SCHNEIDER - Published: February 5, 2006
France once traded hulking Canada for the butterfly-shaped Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, and — without wishing to ruffle any flannels among the lumberjacks — in the bleak midwinter, at least, it's easy to see why it might have struck that bargain.
Actually a cluster of small islands, Guadeloupe has all the classic elements of a tropical paradise: white, pink and black sand beaches; tropical jungles protected in national parks that don't subsidize logging; towering waterfalls with delightful swimming holes at their bases; scuba and snorkeling galore; even a smoldering volcano and a couple of reasonably hot discos.
Add to that authentic Creole culture, French patisseries, local sugar that is distilled into local rum, local coffee, local chocolate and — well, let's just say that by 1763 beaver hats weren't selling as briskly in Paris as they had, and the deal with the British for Canada was quietly done. The southern coast of Grand-Terre, the island that makes up the butterfly's right wing, is where most of Guadeloupe's beachfront tourism has traditionally been centered. But unless your idea of getting away from it all is roasting cheek by smoking jowl on matching beach recliners with your French counterparts while disco plays in the background, you need to choose your lodging wisely as many of the best beaches along this stretch of coast are dominated by giant French resorts of a certain age.
All the beaches are open to the public, however, and the path to the beach in Ste.-Anne is lined with brightly painted stalls and open-air cafes where pretty women sell sarongs and handmade jewelry, crepes and Creole salads. At the end you can rent a kayak or a windsurfer or wander over to the Club Med and get a day pass to use its toys. It's not a deserted strand, particularly on weekends, but there's plenty of shade under the palm trees, the swimming is easy, and locals periodically come by your towel with plastic buckets full of panini for sale. (For a bit more seclusion, try the little undeveloped crescent a few minutes past the Eden Palm Hotel, about halfway between the towns of Ste.-Anne and St.-François.)
Guadeloupe is a full-fledged department of France, so dinner never really gets going before 8. The nicer hotels all have good culinary reputations, augmented at La Toubana by an astounding clifftop view and at the Eden Palm by live entertainment. But if you want to get off-campus, St.-François has the best selection of restaurants. Most of them are rustic little places around the harbor and waterfront selling grilled fish, or pizza. But not all. At the Iguana Café, a romantic place with dark wood floors and lattice walls through which the peepers peep mightily while you sip local rum with sugar and lime, the food makes you wish you were one of those super-tasters who can explain how it is that an appetizer of sea urchin and quail eggs en cocotte can have the clean, salty flavor of swimming off a dock in Maine when you were 11.
St.-François is also where you can board the ferry for La Désirade. La Désiderade is a steep-sided, flat-topped island that was traditionally the first bit of New World land sighted by incoming Spanish square-riggers in the age of exploration, a sign that they had safely crossed the Ocean Sea.
But today Désirade is the kind of place where you can easily see yourself dropping off the face of the earth for a few days. There are no fancy hotels or beach clubs on the island, only what the French call gîtes, which are sort of like bed-and-breakfasts without strange owners shuffling around in worn-out slippers prattling on about how they escaped Manhattan 20 years ago.
In fact, there is no fancy anything here. As on the rest of Guadeloupe, the beaches often have a small, open-air restaurant at one end or the other. Usually these are not much more than a camper converted into a kitchen, a sheet-metal barbecue oven and a trellis of palm fronds and tarps to shade the plastic tables. The food is simple and good: grilled seafood with rice, say, or octopus fricassée. Bob Marley, the universal soundtrack to laid-back living, plays softly on a cassette deck, and if you're not careful, which is to say carefree, whole afternoons can slip happily by before you know it.
But nice as it is, La Désirade isn't where you will most likely find yourselves saying "next time we come to Guadeloupe we're coming directly here." That place is the mountainous left wing of the butterfly, Basse-Terre, in general, and the town of Deshaies in particular. Consider staying at the Taïnos Cottages, an eccentric handful of beautiful post-and-beam open-air cottages built in a traditional Caribbean style entirely out of rough-cut teak. It's a lost-in-time feeling place, with hand-carved teak furniture, white linens, four-poster beds with mosquito netting, grassy paths and keyhole views of both the steep island behind and the blue sea in front. (Not to mention no air-conditioning, which isn't a problem thanks to the ocean breeze.) Each cottage is a unique folly, built over the last few years by Guadeloupe-born Charles-Henry Bichara — "I know eet sounds like an English name," he says with a delicious French accent as he presents you with your morning croissants and egg, "but eet's really not."
Best of all, the hotel is tucked in at the quiet end of Grande Anse, the longest and best beach in all of Guadeloupe. If it's busy, or just for a change, follow the path heading along the coast to the right that winds up around Point le Breton, through a neighborhood that has seen better times, to the more secluded Anse de la Perle. At the end of it there is a sand-floored restaurant called Le Madras 2 where you can order what has by now become your regular midday meal, grilled fish with Creole "dog" sauce (jalapeños, onions and olive oil), and a cold beer.
Then, after a swim, walk back. Deshaies itself is a tidy little town with a handful of good restaurants — especially L'Amer, which is right on the water — and a magnificent botanical garden that's worth a visit for the orchid-covered trees alone. Mostly, though, Deshaies can be a comfortable base for excursions along the coast to small, tasty attractions like the Musée du Rhum, the Maison du Cacao and the Musée du Café.
The west coast of Basse-Terre is also where you can embark on more adventurous explorations on numerous trails into the mountains of the Parc National de la Guadeloupe, or with scuba or snorkels underwater to the colorful reefs off Pigeon Island, one of Jacques Cousteau's favorite diving locations.
Of course, there won't be time to do it all, which is always a good sign about a place. But do go to the top of the volcano La Soufrière, where you can peer into the abyss and remember the smell of your eighth-grade chemistry room. Halfway back down you'll pass a sign pointing out a path heading farther into the jungle, giving distances for no less than three remote wilderness waterfalls. You can't possibly take that path: it's your last day.
"Next time," you say under your breath with the sadness that always accompanies such wishful promises. "Next time."
Visitor Information
GETTING THERE
It's not particularly easy to fly from New York to Guadeloupe. American has a flight leaving at 6:45 a.m. that involves a change of planes in San Juan and that arrives at Pointe-à-Pitre about seven hours after leaving New York. Fares start at $691 in mid-February.
Once there, you probably want to rent a car, which is easy to do from any of the major or minor agencies at the airport in Point a Pitre. Most roads are well maintained; expect to negotiate rotaries.
WHERE TO STAY
Room rates are for winter.
Guadeloupe is really a collection of islands: two large ones that make up "the butterfly" and several smaller ones that are well worth exploring if you have the time.
Of the sprawling French beach clubs sprinkled along the southern coast of Grande-Terre, by Ste.-Anne, the Club Med La Caravelle, www.clubmed.us, 888-932-2582, is probably the best in terms of location. Rates start at $805 a person for a seven-night stay, all meals included.
Assuming you're not traveling as part of a package tour of Parisian pensioners, however, you may want to stay instead at Eden Palm Hotel, www.edenpalm.com, (590-590) 88.48.48, which is on the site of an old sugar plantation between Ste.-Anne and St.-François; doubles from 212 euros ($265, at $1.25 to the euro).
If the view's the thing, try Hôtel La Toubana, www.deshotelsetdesiles.com, (590-590) 88.25.57, doubles from 172 euros, in Ste.-Anne. Near the public entrance to the Club Med beach in Ste.-Anne, the no-frills Hôtel Rotabas, www.lerotabas.com, (590-590) 88.25.60, is friendly, affordable and decidedly local; doubles from 104 euros.
Most visitors to La Désiderate just go back to St.-Francois on the afternoon boat. But on La Désirade, Club Caravelles, desiradoo.com, (590-590) 20.04.00, club has three bungalows: the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria; 65 euros a night for two. Slightly less rustic is the Oualiri Beach Hôtel, (590-590) 20.20.08, www.im-caraibes.com/oualiri, where rooms are 80 euros a night.
There are a handful of hotels in Deshaies in addition to the Taïnos Cottages, www.tainoscottages.com, (590-590) 28.44.42, where all seven cottages are 245 euros a night for two. At Le Rayon Vert, www.hotel.lerayonvert.free.fr, (590-590) 28.43.23, on a hill with wide views, double rooms start at 150 euros.
WHERE TO EAT
Most hotel rates include breakfast, though you won't be disappointed with the patisseries if you oversleep. Lunches are best taken on the beach: almost every strand has an open-air cafe at one end or the other where the food is always simple but never boring. A classic among these is La Roulotte, (590-590) 20.02.33, on the Plage du Souffleur on Désirade.
All that remains, therefore, is dinner, and this being a part of France, the choices are naturally quite good. In St.-Francois, at the exquisitely rustic Les Pieds dans l'Eau, (590-590) 88.60.02, on the waterfront on the Rue de la République, you can get a grilled lobster for 16 euros. At the far more romantic, and pricy, Café Iguana, (590-590) 88.61.37, near the airport, entrees are more in the 20 euro range, but well worth it. In Deshais, several good restaurants are clustered along the waterfront in the center of the village, but don't overlook L'Amer, (590-590) 28.50.43, where entrees are also around 20 euros.
If you find yourself in Gosier, you might visit the marina area of Bas du Fort, where the yachters all come in and mingle with the French tourists. As a result it's wall-to-wall bars and restaurants.
