02 May 2024

Grenada

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The Spice Island girl

After a hectic schedule presenting sport on TV, Kirsty Gallacher was seeking a romantic destination for a break with her boyfriend. Grenada fitted the bill perfectly.

1 Spice Island Resort 2 Gary Rhodes at the Calabash 3 La Luna

I LOVE THE CARIBBEAN. I’ve been to many fabulous islands there: St Lucia is gorgeous, Barbados is tremendous and I’ve also enjoyed Antigua and Tobago.

People had told me so much about Grenada, the Spice Island, that I was keen to add it to my list. I booked a last minute, threehotel break with my boyfriend, rugby player Paul Sampson.

I had a lot of radio work planned so it was great to find a free period before it all started, when the two of us could enjoy a quiet week away.

We were lucky to spend the first part of our holiday at the Spice Island Beach Resort, Grenada’s top hotel. Like the rest of the island, the hotel was devastated by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.

For the past couple of years Grenada has been working hard to recover and rebuild its tourist business.

A key stage was the reopening of Spice Island resort. It has been sensationally refurbished at a cost of £6million, and the man behind it is Sir Royston Hopkin, a wonderful man and well-known figure on Grenada.

Great beach location

I’d been told that the resort had a great beach location but the reality far exceeded my expectations. That first glimpse of the hotel on Grand Anse beach took my breath away.

The beach is a stunning sweep of golden sands fringed by palm trees and washed by clear, warm water. Many argue that it’s the finest beach in the Caribbean. From the minute we checked in after the 20-minute drive from the airport I was impressed by the modern, clean style of the hotel.

In my travels around the Caribbean, I’ve found that many of its five star hotels are a tad old fashioned. Spice Island Resort was completely different, very unfussy.

Our suite had a fabulous sea view. It was wonderful waking up to gaze at the waves practically lapping at our front door.

We had dinner at the hotel one night with Sir Royston who explained that providing a different choice of food every night had been a priority, otherwise guests on an all-inclusive deal can end up eating the same thing every night.

There was no danger of this at Spice Island, which has good new chefs and an impressive selection of menus.

Private cove

Interestingly, the Calabash, next on our visiting list, has tackled the food question head-on by engaging the services of Gary Rhodes, who opened his Rhodes Restaurant here in January 2004. As you would expect, the food is really good.

The key attraction of the Calabash is its privacy. The only thing you can say against Spice Island Resort is that it fronts a public beach, which means you can get plenty of unwanted attention from beach vendors.

The Calabash is essentially in a private cove at L’Anse aux Epines beach so you can chill here undisturbed. We really enjoyed the peace and quiet.

I’m the sort who loves to go into the sea whenever possible but I was disappointed that the water near the Calabash was murky with quite a lot of seaweed in places. The hotel itself was fairly oldfashioned in style with a warm welcome.

It clearly strikes a chord: we met lots of people who go back year after year – and you can see why.

There are 30 suites in ten buildings that are arranged in a horseshoe in eight acres of tropical gardens. All have balconies or patios where breakfast is served by your own maid, which is rather lovely. Our final hotel was again quite different in character from the others we’d tried.

LaLuna is described in the brochure as ‘luxuriating in an oasis of exotic eclecticism’ – all of which rather whetted my traveller’s appetite.

The fact that LaLuna has been created by fashion guru Bernardo Bertucci and renowned designer Gabriella Giuntoli suggested that it was likely to be quite a different proposition from other Caribbean hotels we’ve visited.

The style of the property is described as ‘open-plan Indonesian’. There are 16 thatched cottages around a hillside that overlooks the sea.

A real hideaway

The cottages are attractively decorated and furnished: fourposter beds are set against richly buildcoloured walls and authentic Balinese furniture is arranged with minimalist precision.

On the wooden verandas you can sink into oversized day beds or cool off in small plunge pools, most with views over the ocean. The boutique hotel concept works so well here, you wonder why it hasn’t been tried on other Caribbean islands.

It was a real hideaway, run with genuine flair. Our favourite bit was the restaurant: the food was absolutely fantastic. The chef was Italian, so we feasted on fresh pasta and authentic Italian sauces done with a Caribbean twist. Breakfasts were out of this world.

It was a bit of a trek down from the cottages to the sea or to the restaurant but it was hardly much of a problem. The advantage of being up higher was the glorious views.

A wonderful guide called Bentley took us on a tour of the rainforest. Driving around it was sobering to see just how much work still needs to be done to rebuild after the hurricane. A lot of people are just having to make do. Grenada is a strikingly pretty island and I was impressed by the number of attractive villages, many of them quite different from each other in style and character.

We dined out in two very good restaurants. The Beach House on Balls Beach, a short walk from LaLuna, was excellent – definitely somewhere people should visit if they are on the island. Also worth a trip is the Aquarium Beach Club and Restaurant on Magazine Beach, which serves an all-day barbecue on Sundays when there’s Caribbean music, dancing, cocktails – the whole enchilada.

My abiding impression of Grenada is the friendliness of the people, who offer a genuinely warm welcome.

Perhaps because of the problems they have had over the years – they have also suffered a revolution and an American ‘rescue mission’ – they don’t take tourism for granted.

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