Travel Guides: All Countries / Caribbean / Jamaica
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| | | | Noel Coward's Jamaica
From the Mail on Sunday
So, this is Firefly, Sir Noel Coward's glorious retreat from the world. Looking at the pictures on the walls, everyone from Marlene to Vivien Leigh, to a very young Sean Connery . . . suddenly, I felt a little sad.
As a very young woman I'd been invited by Noel Coward to visit at least twice. At the time, it seemed so far away, so distant. I was then working at the Royal Court Theatre in London being directed by Lindsay Anderson.
Noel Coward, to my very young mind, appeared frivolous. Indeed, he may well have been, but his talent certainly wasn't. Oh well, it's not the first time I've said no, wrongly in this case, and I dare say it won't be the last!
Not that I would have said a word to the other tourists when I finally did get there. It just would have been a sweet feeling to have been included in the Master's wall of snapshots.
Gazing around, the view was indeed wonderful. His main house was smallish, comfortable and stylish. How on Earth did he accommodate all his guests?
Standing in his garden, high on a hill, it all became clear. A young woman of about 20, our tour guide, pointed out another house far below, at the bottom of the hill where Sir Noel Coward's guests stayed.
In fact, from what I understood, they were not invited to the main house before one o'clock. Clever Noel! That way he could work every morning from eight until 12. Wonderful discipline. How often have I noticed that with great talent goes hard work?
We left Firefly, leaving the tiny dining room exactly as it was when the Queen Mother had come to lunch all those years ago. Very fine, fancy china on a rather informal, not grand, table.
What fun they must have had in this exquisite, open-air dining room, now all maintained by Chris Blackwell of Island Records as a living museum dedicated to Noel Coward's lasting memory.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
Pure heaven
I have visited Jamaica on two occasions and it as been pure heaven. The people are just so laid back and warm and welcoming.
Jamaica maybe a poor country, but it is very rich in charm and personality. Jamaica is simply PARADISE.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
Playing it safe
From the Mail on Sunday
Jamaica looks out at the world with two faces. In one we see violence. In the other we see glamour, celebrities, excitement. That's the general public perception - but is either true? Or in each case has it all been exaggerated? Discuss.
While you mutter among yourselves, let me tell you about the hol what I have just had. That was dead glamorous.
We stayed at Round Hill on the north-west coast, not far from Montego Bay. It's on an old plantation of some 100 acres on a slope sweeping down to the sea on which there is a hotel and 29 very posh villas and cottages, privately owned but available to all for most of the year, when the owners are not in residence.
It's run a bit like a co-op, with the individual owners having shares in the whole.
The concept was created in 1952. It was about the first resort of its kind in the world, certainly in the West Indies.
In the early years, the villas were 70 per cent British owned, the first owner being Noel Coward. He was interviewed on the radio by the BBC not long afterwards and described his cottage as 'overlooking an absolutely ravishing tax advantage'.
Other early British owners or guests included Ian Fleming, Ivor Novello, Lord Harmsworth, Charlie Chaplin and the Dukes of Marlborough, Norfolk and Bedford.
Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, a hero of the Second World War, was once having dinner at Round Hill when he was asked if he had ever met the Pope. 'Yes,' he replied, 'when I took Rome.'
That sort of old Brit, stiff upper wallet, aristo type began to fade away with the arrival of starry, showbizzy Yanks such as Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Oscar Hammerstein, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Paul Newman and Paul Simon. John F. Kennedy had his honeymoon at Round Hill. While I was there, I spotted Ralph Lauren, one of the present-day owners, 70 per cent of whom are American.
The cottage where we stayed had a nicely Fifties flavour to it, almost like a stage set from a Noel Coward play, an atmosphere they are deliberately trying to retain. It came with its own maid who cooked breakfast each morning.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
Explore outside your hotel
I had a two week holiday in Jamaica.The place was gorgeous but the food was not quite so good. Although we stayed in an all inclusive hotel, I always go beyond the complex because I believe in seeing the culture.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
Ocho Rios is your best bet
I have stayed in Negril, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios and found Ocho Rios to be the best.
I was abit scared about walking about in Montego Bay, but I didn't feel threatened in Ocho Rios at all.
My husband, my teenage son and I stayed at the Jamaica Grande which has now been taken over by the Sunset Beach Group. I only hoped it was still as good as we stayed there five times.
The food and entertainment were food and I absolutely loved the mini casino. As a rule, I don't gamble but it was so much fun that i can't wait to go back.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
Club together for the best deal
I went to Jamaica in Oct 2000. I have travelled round this country a lot and have experienced many of this country's sights. I would like to strongly recommend that if any persons are wanting to book excursions that they chat with other holiday makers that may want to go to see the same sights as them.
Look in the reps guide, choose your destination or combine them, then book a taxi and arrange a price with the driver. It will work out a lot cheaper and you will be able to go on and explore other areas of this fantastic island in the same way. Also you can get the driver to take the party to a supermarket and load up with refreshments. It's a lot cheaper.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
Great for a second visit
I visited Jamaica for the first time last year and was so impressed I am going back again this year.
It is simply paradise with beautiful beaches and turquoise-coloured water, fantastic countryside and plenty of history.
It is a fantastic place to visit.
Travel Guide: Jamaica
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| | | | Churches and tiny bars
Another nice thing about Jamaica - hardly any bugs or mosquitoes, which surprised me. How many tropical islands are also beautiful but one is bitten to pieces? Finally, I dragged my travelling companion Heather away. I wanted to see the rest of the island.
We saw tiny little houses painted in nursery-rhyme colours, all sparkling in the sun. Children stood outside waving and smiling at us as we drove past. I counted churches and tiny bars. And it seemed every 200 yards or so there was a church and every 500 yards was a bar or a meeting place.
Everywhere we looked there were witty signs. Their use of English was funny and clever. Take just one of the road signs: 'Undertakers love Overtakers. Drive to stay alive!!' Then, outside one of the churches: 'Jesus loves sinners. Let's have a party! Everyone's invited, every-one's a sinner.'
We stopped at the Halfway House, a museum full of very good local paintings and with a restaurant underneath that was run by a family I recognised from London's Soho. They recognised me. They were in Jamaica having a reunion.
We stayed for dinner and it was every bit as good as they had been in Soho with the added bonus of alfresco dining with stunning views, weather and flowers wherever we looked.
As it was getting late, we drove back to the wonderful Jamaica Inn, up the curved driveway, back-lit with stunning flowers and foliage against a navy blue sky filled with the brightest silver stars I'd ever seen.
Raquel, the assistant manager, a pale Jamaican, escorted us back to our room with a large, private veranda furnished like an English country sitting room, only more luxurious, overlooking the gardens and large, curved, private beach. I've been in all sorts of places but this was, without question, one of the loveliest.
Next morning, the sun was shining brightly and it was barely 7am. What a view leading from the hotel, set in a semi-circle of large rooms and verandas. The whole hotel, or inn, was completely painted in a vivid, cobalt blue, with bright, white trim, leading into a lush, green garden, croquet lawn, flowers like I had never seen and white sands leading to a turquoise sea. Any traces of London flu and gloom evaporated as if by magic.
We ventured on to the large terrace, where we grabbed fresh coffee, and wandered back to our room. We could see other people doing exactly the same. We rang for breakfast, which was served on our veranda overlooking the beach and garden.
The best conch soup
The grounds were lush, beautifully maintained, with stunning views, but the beach was a bit disappointing. It's rather small and gets crowded when the hotel is full, as it was when we were there.
So one day we set off for Negril beach, an hour's drive away. Having had the glamour experience, all of course in an enclosed, secured, artificial environment, it was time to see the other more real, public face of Jamaica.
The last time I was on the island, 10 years ago, I got myself mugged. I was in Kingston, looking at an Arawak museum, stayed too long, had to come out by a back door and, without thinking, I wandered off completely the wrong way - and found myself in the docks area.
A kid of about 15, who looked as nervous as I was, pulled a knife out, ripped the pocket right off my shirt and ran away with my money. It wasn't a lot, just a few Jamaican dollars, as I was leaving that day for Haiti.
Pretty scary at the time but all my own stupid fault. It could have happened anywhere in the world. I've never held it against Jamaica, though of course everyone nods wisely whenever I happen to mention it, taking it as totally typical.
In the Jamaica Gleaner, their daily paper, which I read at Round Hill every morning, there was a report that gun gangs had increased from 70 to 140 in the past year, giving the impression that Jamaica had collapsed into Third World anarchy.
Yet, at the same time, the paper was full of pages devoted to such First World, self-indulgent obsessions as ' horoscopes for dieters' and 'food to eat to improve your sexual performance'.
I asked Josef Forstmayr, managing director of Round Hill, if Negril would be safe. He's Austrian by birth but has been in Jamaica for 20 years and loves it so much he doesn't intend to leave. He's never been mugged and says it's mainly an urban problem.
'Kingston is a big place with 1.7 million people and some very poor areas. That's where the gangs are. Tourists are safe, as long as they don't make themselves a target.'
He recommended a beach caff at Negril, the Cosmo, all very modest, he said, where you could change and shower for just a £1 entrance fee, with the best conch soup in Jamaica, so he said. All of which turned out true, though it took us a while to find it.
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| | | | A taste of luxury
This was a taste of true luxury - a crisp, pink tablecloth with matching napkins, every kind of fresh, tropical fruit, and any kind of cooked breakfast we wanted. All of it was served by our own waiter.
The beach was all of 50 yards away. This was dotted by thatched umbrellas for very welcome shade. There was enough space between them for privacy. Looking around, everyone seemed relaxed, tanned and rather elegant, which is fairly difficult on a beach.
That is, everyone except for Heather and myself; we were very white and covered in heavy-duty sun block! Never mind. It was too blissful to worry about that. Most of the day, we lazed on the powdery-white beach, just taking in an occasional swim. Heather tried the pool. I tried the ocean.
At lunchtime, we sat at the beach bar having sandwiches and cold beer, and talked to Teddy, who'd been running the bar for 40 years. He didn't look a day over 45.
Listening to the cricket on Teddy's radio, with the sea in front, a soft breeze blowing behind and talking to the other guests, was as good as it gets. But I wanted to see what it was like outside the hotel.
We went to a local bar-cum-restaurant, with tables outside under the shade of trees on a spare piece of land at the side of the road. A tiny girl of about three came to visit us. I asked her to sit with us and she shyly did and shared my chips.
Her family sat at the next table with an even smaller girl. Both of them looked delightful, beautifully dressed, including pretty hairstyles with beads in them. We took a picture of her and waved goodbye before we went on to the local arts and crafts market.
This was an experience. It reminded me of Camden Market, which is near my home, except for the brilliant sunshine. There were at least 200 stalls, all selling rather similar things. Mostly, it was women running the stalls and if I'd won the Lottery, I would have bought from everyone there.
Everything from clothes to handbags to local paintings was available. All of it was very reasonable and all the women competed with each other to get our custom. I think they earn so little that every last penny makes a difference.
Finally, I bought from Mavis, as she was the eldest there. She proudly told me she had a Scottish grandma. She strongly reminded me of the religious sisters who had brought me up.
Nicely unalarming
Ten years ago, I did a lot of walking on Ocho Rios beach which I hated, full of hustlers, drug pushers, noisy speedboats, tatty and nasty. I feared Negril Beach, which I'd never been to before, might be much the same but it's now my second most favourite big beach in the Caribbean, after the West Coast beach in Barbados.
So clean, so beautiful, so interesting, so unspoiled and yes, utterly safe, or so it seemed to me. I walked the whole length and no one tried to sell me anything. I did note a little four-wheel-drive beach buggy full of policemen going up and down the sand, which obviously helps.
It was marked Police, so that was how I knew, but the cops were in civvies, which was nicely unalarming.
I was also impressed by the fact that the hotels are low rise, set back from the beach, mostly hidden from sight. I came back and raved to Josef about how pleasant it all was, how well regulated, no sign of violence of any sort.
He told me that his Japanese guests, who mainly come in the summer, don't actually go much on safe old Negril - they prefer to go to dodgier places like Montego Bay and Kingston.
Back home, they are totally regulated and all very law-abiding, so on hols they love to mix with er, the less regulated elements in Jamaican society, to observe the rastas, the gangster areas, the drinking dives, the reggae clubs. It excites them, tickles them, to see such free spirits.
In a way, you could argue that Jamaica's image for violence is actually an attraction for some part of its overall culture, which, as everyone knows who has ever visited the island, is vibrant, exciting, highly creative in music and literature, far more interesting, so Jamaicans always maintain, than safe but boring and conformist, if ever so affluent Barbados.
Not of course that I'm seriously suggesting the Jamaican Tourist Board should promote violence as a tourist attraction. Tut tut. Just an observation, in passing.
The tourist trade generally is all too aware of the harm such an image causes. They'd rather point up the glamour side.
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| | | | Dance under the stars
After the market, we were more than delighted to get back to total luxury. We arrived back to a wonderful welcome from Betty, our own personal room maid. Dinner was on the Candlelit Terrace, with five courses and a live band playing dance music under the stars.
Suddenly, everyone we had vaguely seen on the beach was dancing together beautifully. Not only did they not miss a step, they were all dressed marvellously. I felt I was back in the time of the British Raj.
The feeling was not only magical, it was like a large private club. Dancing wonderfully was a very attractive couple whom I came to know as John and Jill. In fact, it was John Turner, an ex-Canadian premier, and his wife.
The next day we took it very easy. At about noon, Teddy brought round a Jamaican sweetener, a rum-based, very delicious drink. It was a lot better than mid-morning coffee at home. In fact, the Jamaica Inn is so special it became very hard to tear us away. Everything one could possibly want was right outside our own veranda.
We flew home with Air Jamaica. All the way back to Heathrow we still felt the same happy, sweet glow we had experienced there.
Travel facts: Caribtours (020 7751 0660). The Jamaica Inn will be closed for refurbishment between September 5 and October 12.
Still a glamorous island
One of the richest, most successful, present-day celebrities in Jamaica today is Chris Blackwell, born into the old white plantocracy but admired and loved by all Jamaicans and music lovers everywhere, for founding Island Records and bringing Bob Marley to world notice.
He is now the new owner, among many other things, of Goldeneye, once the home of Ian Fleming, (which you can rent, when Mr Blackwell is not there). In himself, he is further proof that Jamaica is indeed still a glamorous island. But I asked him about Jamaica's other image. He groaned.
'Some Americans won't come to Jamaica because they think it will be like Bosnia. Brits expect it will be full of Yardies. That's because whenever there's a black gangster arrested in London, he's always called a Yardie and said to come from Jamaica, whether he has or not.
'Jamaica's reputation for violence is very unfair. Over 90 per cent of it is either domestic or between gangs, in other words, between people who know each other. Outsiders are not generally affected. But that's our image and we just have to live with it, difficult though it is.
'We have to hope that the people who do come will find that Jamaicans are magical people, very warm and very friendly.'
Yup, I'd go along with that.
A Walk Around The West Indies by Hunter Davies has just been published in paperback by Orion at £7.99.
TRAVEL FACTS:
Elegant Resorts features Round Hill. Details from 01244 897999 or visit http://www.elegantresorts.co.uk.
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| | Available rental properties in Jamaica |
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| |  | | Barbary - Villa with a View
On 2 1/2 acres overlooking Ocho Rios & St. Ann's Bay, Barbary has the seclusion of a private estate just minutes from Ocho Rios/Jamaica's north shore.
|  | | Teresinajamaica
A unique Jamaican chalet for vacation rental.
|  | | Harding Hall Guesthouse, GreenIsland
Private Home in rural Jamaica. Unspoilt,comfortable, off the beaten track . Breathtaking view of the GreenIsland Bay. Suitable for family,friends ....
|  | | Maxfield Villa
This stylish self-catering villa provides excellent home comfort. Located in a select part of Runaway Bay, close to all amenities. Sleeps 1-13 guests
|  | | Maxfield Villa, Runaway Bay
Luxurious one bedroom self-catering accommodation. Experience home from home comfort next time you visit Jamaica by staying with us in your own one b
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