Barbados

We had a week in Barbados where Oliver gave a paper on animal welfare at the Commonwealth Veterinary Conference. We had time to do an island tour and enjoy some of the restaurants (very expensive in some cases). The best was "The Cliff" which is a very expensive build out on the cliff with $120 for 2 courses. Of the wine, cigar etc takes it up somewhat. The locals say its called The Cliff because when you get the bill you want to jump off the cliff. http://www.thecliffbarbados.com/index.html

Downtown Georgetown is very basic (reminded me of Suva) with a cafe beside the charter boats being the main lunch time hangout

Beaches on the east coast are beautiful with white sand -and full of English. There are very few US tourists. We stayed in the Hilton with views of the sea (and lighthouse) outside our balcony and views of Georgetown from the side of the hotel.

The island is small. You can drive around it in less than 3 hours. Roads are very windy and narrow. The east coast is Atlantic with more wind and surf. The west is calm and has all the rich and famous houses. Tiger Woods spent $10m on his wedding at the Sandy Lane Resort -beautiful - $2000 per nite -the English go there for tea only. http://www.sandylane.com/