With its amazing beaches, rich history, excellent gastronomy and laid-back lifestyle, Barbados is one of the world’s most desirable holiday destinations. The island’s average daytime temperature is 30C all year round with permanently warm seas and a prevailing north-eastern trade wind rolling in off the Atlantic to prevent it from ever feeling too hot.
Most of Virgin Atlantic Holidays’ (see boxout below) hotels are found on the island’s stunning west coast where the narrow, golden-sand beaches are lined with villas, smart places to stay, and the sea is calm and crystal clear. A sunset cocktail on one of the palm-shaded hotel terraces between Bridgetown and Speightstown is a memorable way to end a day of sunbathing, jetskiing, snorkelling or lazing in a glass-bottomed boat.
Spend the afternoon at the luxurious Sandy Lane hotel. Built on a former sugar plantation, its Bajan Blue restaurant is the place for high tea and perhaps a round of golf at one of the hotel’s three courses. Sugar production was a major part of the Barbadian economy from the 1600s to the 1900s and fancy plantation houses from colonial times are scattered around the island, many of which are open for visits and rum tastings.
The capital, Bridgetown, named after an old Indian bridge which spanned the Constitution River, has the best of the island’s shopping, with fashion boutiques along Broad Street and Swan Street as well as craft centres, spectacular fish markets and the Agapey chocolate factory (not just for kids). Have a wander around the Garrison Historic area, a Unesco world heritage site, dotted with forts and brightly coloured British colonial buildings including the Main Guard, a marvel of military design with clocktower and cannons overlooking the racecourse. Nearby is George Washington house, an elegant plantation residence where the future American president stayed as a teenager in 1751. Other sights near the centre include the Harry Bayley Observatory, the Gun Hill Signal Station and the visitor centre at Mount Gay, the world’s oldest rum producer.
Heading inland, rare orchids, mango trees and huge baobabs can be found in the Flower Forest Botanical Gardens. Even more spectacular is the forested ravine of Welchman Hall Gully, where visitors can view the entire island to the sound of green monkeys chattering in the canopy overhead. Across on the less-developed, rugged east coast is Bathsheba and its huge, globe-shaped rocky outcrops jutting out into the sea from a windswept arc of sand. It’s a surfer’s paradise, while swimmers can enjoy the oversized rockpools beyond the shade of swaying coconut palms.
Besides surfing and swimming, Barbados is a watersports hotspot with excellent sailing facilities, stand-up paddleboard, windsurfing and kitesurfing on Silver Rock and Long beach. Scuba divers can explore the shipwrecks off Carlisle Bay and the Folkestone Marine Park. There are great coastal hikes along the former railway tracks of the eastern flank of the Scotland District from Bathsheba to Bath.
For those who prefer spectating, on their Virgin Atlantic Holidays trip, cricket matches at the Kensington Oval are among the West Indies’ liveliest events, or there’s horse racing at the Barbados Turf Club on Saturday afternoons, polo in St James or a drive-in open-air cinema.
After dark, with cricket bats put away and surfboards safely stored, Bajan culture really comes alive. The Crop Over festival (traditionally the end of the sugar cane harvest) runs for six weeks during the summer which includes plenty of rum punch and live performances of the island’s soca, tuk and calypso music with modern fusions of “chutney soca”, “ragga” and “rapso”.
Barbados’ culinary heritage is a combination of British and West African flavours with touches of India and a strong emphasis on sugar, pickles and fresh fish. Today, Bajan cuisine is centred around flying fish with cou-cou (okra and cornmeal) and hot pepper sauce, but restaurant menus are full of extravagant-looking lobster, crab and prawn dishes served with tropical fruit and vegetables. Try an octopus salad at The Fish Pot in Fort Rupert or a steak in rum sauce at Cariba in Durants. Cuz’s fish shack on Pebbles beach is a must-try.
Peanut brittle, coconut bread and baked custard are three firm favourites from the dessert trolley, as well as a super-refreshing coconut water inside a football-sized green coconut with a straw, best served at the roadside.
Sign up for a walking Bajan food tour organised by Lickrish and make sure you keep Friday night free for the Oistins fish fry. Held at Bay Gardens beside the fish market, Oistins attracts locals and visitors from all over the island for a night of barbecued barracuda, marlin, kingfish and lobster as well as chicken, ribs and buckets of coleslaw. This is all served at communal tables in a street party atmosphere with a soundtrack of reggae and calypso with steel bands. There’ll be lots of dancing and noisy games of dominoes late into the night.
The world’s newest republic, this pear-shaped island in the south-eastern Caribbean is a dream location for holidaymakers who want to combine beachlife and watersports with gastronomy and culture. Barbados’ botanical gardens, forests, caves and some stunning colonial architecture, including the island’s unique, pastel-coloured chattel houses on its west coast, mean there is so much to see and enjoy. And don’t forget to visit a traditional rum house on your Virgin Atlantic Holidays trip.
