The Caribbean Pompeii

The precious Route de la Trace keeps climbing until reaching Le Morne Rouge, a city located at the southern hillside of Mont Pelée, from where leaves a highway of 8 km., that goes down to the coast to St. Pierre, the old capital of the island. Behind this city, at a time known as the Paris of the Antilles, emerges the frightening silhouette of the Montagne, a sleeping volcano, since its violent eruption of May 8, 1902. Some days before that tragic day, the volcano started to roar, but nobody realized the imminent catastrophe. Finally, at ten minutes before eight on the morning May 8th, the volcano erupted. After two huge explosions, an ardent river of lava and gasses came down at a vertiginous speed by the hillside towards the city, that was burnt in few seconds, and where all the inhabitants were killed at once. Just before entering St. Pierre, the highway passes next to a cemetery, where is a huge Mausoleum, containing the rests of the victims of this tragedy.

St. Pierre never recovered after such tragic event. What once was a flourishing city, full of cafes and cabarets, is now a quiet place, of clean streets, where 6,000 people live, and which major attraction is having reach fame as the Pompeii of the Caribbean. Almost a century later, the ruins offer a silent testimony of the horror that captured, in few seconds, the city: burnt stone walls of the old warehouses next to the sea, foundations and stairs leading nowhere; rests of a theater (a copy of the one in Bordeaux), and the cell where Antoine Ciparis, the only survivor, was, and who saved his life because the previous night got drunk, and was jailed in an underground cell, with thick walls, that protected him. Ciparis later traveled around America, as an attraction of the Barnum & Baileys circus.

The Musée Vulcanologique (open daily, entrance fee), at the Rue Victor Hugo, shows photographs, in black of white, of the old city, and a wide collection of relics saved from the ruins; nails and screws melted by the heat, melted bottles, a huge bell deformed by the fire, clocks that stopped for ever at that tragic hour, carbonized food containers. When you go out, under the daylight, and the silence, you can easily feel a chill watching the volcano, inside which the lava is still boiling.

Through Gorges de la Falaise
At 8 km. from St. Pierre is Le Morne Rouge, a city at the feet of Mont Pelée, where you can breathe a cool and pure air, and take a rough highway that climbs the volcano’s hillside, without reaching the top, at 488 m. higher than the end of the road. Only experts, and always with a guide, can try to climb the peak, a place where rains are usual and hiding many risks. However, nature lovers will find around Le Morne Rouge, many paths free from danger. If you want to live a little adventure, go inside by the path that runs parallel to the river Falaise, until reaching the Gorges de la Falaise, where you’ll find a series of canyons and splendid waterfalls.