Les Saintes, Terre-de-Haut, Guadeloupe

Phyllis, a friend of mine from volunteering, went on a Caribbean cruise last year. I was cheeky and asked if she could send me a couple of postcards from her trip, and she did send me two: this one of Guadeloupe mailed from Barbados, and one from Barbados. It would be so cool to go on one of those cruises myself one day... My Canadian pen friend has just been on one, too... *jealous* ..and my sister-in-law has just got a job on a cruise line so she'll get to visit some pretty amazing places as well, I'd think.

The Îles des Saintes ("Islands of the Saints"), also known as Les Saintes, is a small archipelago of the French Antilles located to the south of Basse-Terre Island, west of Marie-Galante and north of Dominica. It is a dependency of Guadeloupe, which, in turn, is an overseas department and region of France.

 Terre-de-Haut is a commune in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe, including Terre-de-Haut Island and a few other small uninhabited islands of the archipelago (les Roches Percées; Îlet à Cabrit; Grand-Îlet; la Redonde). It is the most populous island of the archipelago of the les Saintes.

Marie Galante, Guadeloupe

One more card for tonight. I would so love to be somewhere like this at the moment - it's so cold here at the moment and when I'm sleeping during the day, I need two duvets because I'd be freezing otherwise. :/ Having said that, though, I'm actually kind of looking forward to Christmas this year :O

Marie-Galante is an island of the Caribbean Sea located south of Guadeloupe and north of Dominica. It is a dependency of Guadeloupe, which is an overseas department and region of France. Marie-Galante has a land area of 170.5 km². It had 12,009 inhabitants in the 2006 census, with a population density of 76 people per km².

French stamps are used in Guadeloupe.

Guadeloupe

One more card for today... a fantastic market view from Guadeloupe. Thank you a million, Olga!

Guadeloupe is a Caribbean island located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. Guadeloupe is an integral part of France, as are the other overseas departments. Besides Guadeloupe island, the smaller islands of Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the Îles des Saintes are included in Guadeloupe.

As part of France, Guadeloupe is part of the European Union and the Eurozone; hence, as for all Eurozone countries, its currency is the euro. However, as an overseas department, Guadeloupe is not part of the Schengen Area. The prefecture (i.e. French regional capital) of Guadeloupe is Basse-Terre. Its official language is French, although many of its inhabitants also speak Antillean Creole (Créole Guadeloupéen).

Olga tells me that traditional markets like the one on this postcard are very popular in Guadeloupe and offer the biggest choice of fruits and vegetables. There are only 4 big supermarkets in the islands!

French stamps are used in Guadeloupe.