Le Parc aux Orchidees

Magic and medicine on the slopes of a tropical volcano. Other places on this butterfly-shaped French Caribbean island have borrowed the word 'ecotourisme' simply to spice up their marketing - not so here. Richard, Valérie and family share their delight in a place intimately in tune with its environment. The Gautiers have left behind a rat race of metropolitan medicine - she an ex-nurse, he a former pharmacist - to pick up where Jean-Claude Rancé, the Parc's creator, left off. It's a point of pride for the local community and a place of fascination for guests. Wake up in your neat little bungalow amid the dew-drenched leaves of a tiny jungle, buzzing with hummingbirds and crowded with colour. Water, heated by solar panels, flows from the mountain to the freshwater pool and jacuzzi. Learn of neglected Creole medicine, hidden in the abundant plant life that envelops you here. Green and serene.