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Our next stop was Isles des Saintes. What a delightful place! French restaurants and cafes dotted the narrow streets crowded with bicycles and motorcycles. One morning we had a petit dejeuner (breakfast) of croissant, pain au chocolat, and chausson de pommes (flaky apple pastry) at a small bakery and then walked to the fort perched high above the town.
Fort de Napoleon is not only a restored fort but also a botanical garden of cacti and succulents, a fishing museum, a museum of the fort itself, and a museum of a naval battle the French lost to the English. This fort as well as others took years to build but frequently the battles were won or lost by ships on the water without the fort being fired upon. Some forts were constructed by slave labor and built with rocks hand-chiseled square. This fort was built without slave labor so the workers did not chisel the rocks but just mortared them into the exterior wall, the moat and the fort's walls, making an interesting design. The panoramic views from the top were spectacular as were the many species of landscaped cactus. There were iguanas on the grounds and goats to keep the grounds manicured and fertilized. Mama goats and baby goats wandered outside the fort and along the city streets where hens also roamed. We were told that the animals always knew where to go home at night.
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