Grenada Attractions – Grenville and surroundings – Nature in the raw

At Grenville, a sprawling, rather unattractive town with a dirty beach on the east coast, the picturesque coastal road leads to La Sagesse Nature Center about 10 miles south.

La sagesse Nature Center

Here, you drive through a banana plantation before arriving at a shaded beach, overlooked by a small guesthouse and restaurant terrace. Within walking distance is a microcosm of Caribbean coastal ecology – a mangrove estuary, salt pond, coral reefs and cactus woodlands.

Grand Etang National Park

But Grenada’s natural tour de force is the Grand Etang National Park, an area which covers the mountainous backbone of the island, from Mount St Catherine (2755 ft) to Mount Sinai (2306 ft). The Grenville-St George’s road winds tortuously up into rainforest and occasional warm mist. About halfway is Grand Etang itself, a water-filled volcanic crater at 1900 ft. Legend has it that the lake is bottomless, and certainly few feel the urge to swim in the strangely still water.

A Visitor Center offers a wealth of information on the surrounding flora and fauna, and there are well-marked hiking trails which take from 15 minutes to three hours to complete. It is wet, sweaty and sometimes slippery high in the mountains, but walkers will be reward with panoramic views and sightings of birds, hawks and even opossums.