Papillote Tropical Gardens

Papillote Tropical Gardens provides a visual feast of colorful vegetation.

Papillote Tropical Gardens are part of and associated with Papillote Wilderness Retreat.

Papillote Wilderness Retreat features rooms for lodging and volanic hot pools in addition to the gardens.

Papillote Tropical Gardens is listed as "#3 in Best Things To Do in Dominica" by U.S News and World Report, which correctly states, "If you traveled to Dominica in hopes of catching a glimpse of rare plants or wildlife, look no further than the Papillote Tropical Gardens."

It rained to some degree the entire time we were at Papillote Tropical Gardens, alternating between drizzle and downpour.

Papillote Tropical Gardens presented an easy opportunity to quickly see so much variety of gorgeous tropical vegetation.

Papillote Tropical Gardens is located on Trafalgar Falls Road and is close to the Trafalgar Falls trailhead and to the highly recommended Brunch and Munch restaurant.

The Papillote Tropical Gardens photo gallery (see bottom of page) features numerous photographs of this visually stunning attraction. We enjoyed our visit there and found it to be high reward for a small investment of money and time.

Dominica Botanical Gardens

We visited the Dominica Botanical Gardens in Roseau one afternoon during our five nights in Dominica.

Dominica Botanical Gardens feels like a large city park with lots of open space, roads traversing through it, and lots of green surface area.

The roads in the park-like Dominica Botanical Gardens are in good condition and large enough for drivers to pull over to the shoulder to park and a lot of local residents had done just that.

Although it is reported that hurricanes have ruined a lot of this gardens' plant exhibits, there are still some interesting and beautiful plant species to be found.

Arguably the most famous exhibit in the Dominica Botanical Garden is "David the Goliath."

This is an African Baobab Tree (Adansonia digitata) that was blown down onto an empty bus during Hurricane David in 1979.

We were amazed that this tree is still living and has new growth even on the portion that fell on the bus.

The Dominica Botanical Gardens provided a pleasant experience of roughly one hour in a quieter part of the otherwise chaotic Roseau.

Batibou Beach

We stopped at several sites (and Coral Reef Restaurant for lunch) on the way from Kootney Resort in Portsmouth to the Douglas-Charles Airport to depart from Dominica after spending five nights there. One of the sites was the gorgeous Batibou Beach.

There is more shoulder than is common for Dominica roads near the entrance to the road that goes down to Batibou Beach and we parked on that shoulder.

We might have opted to go down that bumpy road in our rented Honda Crossroad, but there was a bar blocking the entrance to the road when we arrived (late morning).

Just as we started to walk down it, a woman arrived and parked her car and lifted the bar blocking the access road. She said we could drive down if we liked, but we had decided that given our time constraints we would only walk far enough along the access road to see a view of the beach. She told us we didn't need to pay the $5 USD if we weren't going to the beach. Here is what that access road looks like.

Although we did not walk all the way to the beach, we quickly wished we had allotted enough time to enjoy this beach when we got our first view of it!

We had read that Batibou Bay offers arguably the most beautiful beach on Dominica and that was a powerful argument as we looked over it.

We took a lot of photographs of this amazing sight!

If we have the opportunity to visit Dominica again, Batibou Beach will be at the top of our list to experience.

Dominica's Red Rocks

We stopped at several sites (and Coral Reef Restaurant for lunch) on the way from Kootney Resort in Portsmouth to the Douglas-Charles Airport to depart from Dominica after spending five nights there. One of the sites was the Red Rocks area near Calibishie.

The combination of orange, blue, and green colors at Red Rocks is gorgeous.

There is a decent sized parking lot in front of Red Rock Cuisine at Red Rock, a bar and restaurant near the entrance to the short trail to the Red Rock area. We paid the bartender a small amount of cash (around $5 EC) to enter the trail.

Pointe Baptiste Estate Chocolate Factory

We stopped at several sites (and Coral Reef Restaurant for lunch) on the way from Kootney Resort in Portsmouth to the Douglas-Charles Airport to depart from Dominica after spending five nights there. One of the sites was Pointe Baptiste Estate Chocolate Factory.

We followed our mobile device GPS which got us close to the entrance and a local resident confirmed that we were headed in the correct direction when the small road split into multiple directions.

The owner/operator was outdoors and provided us samples of some of the chocolate flavors. We ended up purchasing the "mint" and the "spice" bars and he accepted much of the Eastern Caribbean currency and change we were eager to spend before leaving the country.

Before we left, he pointed out to us how to take a turn-off within the same Pointe Batiste Estate neighborhood to head to Red Rocks.