Technically ?discovered? by Christopher Columbus in 1624 and with the usual aplomb that surrounded discoveries of this nature down the years, he duly butchered and massacred the locals and ?nicked their country?. Boy how the locals must have looked forward to the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese in those days.



We Brits however used to take a slightly more ?long fingered? approach to all of this which basically meant that we would wait for the Spanish and Portuguese to go in and do the dirty work by butchering the locals and then we would come in later and in turn kick them out!

Life was much simpler then but I digress. All of this is really historical stage setting for the fact that over 150 years or so numerous skirmishes were held over both islands before the islands being finally ceded to the United Kingdom in 1783. The islands achieved full independence in 1983 and in the ensuing years have gone from strength to strength.

Access to St Kitts and Nevis is quite easy with direct flights from Gatwick in the UK and these flights go direct to Robert L Bradshaw International Airport.

The islands light within what is known as the Hurricane belt hummed the upshot of all this is that during June to November it can be a bit wet and windy ( slight understatement here but you get the drift). As befits Islands that get this amount of water on such a regular basis both islands are heavily rain forested which helps keep the islands lush and green for want of a better description. Downside of this means that the higher you go in the islands chance you have of getting wet.

Still, can't have everything I suppose?

Actually on St Kitts and Nevis you almost can. There are a wealth of heritage sites in both islands so it would appear that there is almost something for everybody. On St. Kitts there is Basseterre which was the old French colonial capital, to the north of the island there is ?Bloody Point? the site of the infamous massacre of the Amerindians by the British and French in 1626. So called because apparently the river flowed bright red with blood for days ? nice but you did ask?

On the East Coast of St. Kitts are the natural rock formations known as Black Rock's. leads all the traces of molten lava that flowed down from Mount Liamuiga a Volcano and which solidified as the boiling lave cooled in the sea.

The neighbouring smaller island of Nevis is probably more renowned for its sandy beaches than anything else and is only a half hours ferry journey from St Kitts. Neither island is that big with St Kitts having a population of 42,000 and Nevis only 3,000.

Both are well worth a visit.