TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Trip Report, June 22-24, 2021 (Part 4)

Tuesday, June 22

Needing a day with no appointments, I started at the Infinity Pool, where I was joined for a time by RM5 LI. It was lovely meeting another TTOL member. After she left, I read for awhile, keeping my eye on the dark clouds circling above. At some point, I felt rain was imminent and headed back to my room. While the rain did not materialize, I took the opportunity of free time to do a load of laundry. The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy on my deck.

One of the newer restaurants on my list was Astra, next door to Skipjacks. I arrived early enough to get a table on the lagoon.



I am partial to sweet white wines, which many places on the island don’t have so I asked for a Kiwi Martini, which was pretty tasty.



After a garden salad, I was looking forward to roast duck with hoisin sauce. It looked better than it tasted and was somewhat tough.



Astra is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I would like to go back for breakfast to see what that’s like.

Wednesday, June 23

A first for me: a day at Loterie Farm by the pool. The only question is, why haven’t I done this sooner? It was a wonderfully relaxing day with good service and friendly servers.





All three of us had different tuna entrees for lunch; mine was the tuna poke bowl.



For dinner I joined friends at Bar Code where I had yet more tuna, this time their tuna tartare. I was pleasantly surprised to see the three horn players from Sunday afternoon performing with Bar Code’s owner, Ivan, on guitar. More jazz.



Thursday, June 24

After breakfast at Chesterfield’s, I drove to Parotte Ville. George remembered that I had been there before (he is the one who took the picture that became my avatar). A couple of the birds were pretty aggressive about pecking at shiny objects, and at one point I saw my Omega chain and slider falling to the ground. I just plopped it into my purse and continued with taking pictures.













Back in the car, I attempted to put my necklace back on, only to discover that the pesky parrot had chewed off a portion of the clasp, making it inoperable. Made an unscheduled stop at DKGems, where they will replace the clasp for me.

For dinner, I met a local friend at Balls and Wine; it’s in the Paradise Mall above IZI. What a fun experience! This is a tapas restaurant, and sharing is encouraged; you can find their menu on their web site. We shared several items, and all were delicious. This is a place I hope to return to before leaving.



Time goes so quickly when on the island. I have one full day left at Divi before moving to Horny Toad for ten days.