Pointe-à-Pitre: France's Caribbean gateway

The Covered Market of Pointe-à-Pitre, active since the 19th century, sells spices, tropical fruits, and local rum under its distinctive iron structure.

Just steps away, the Memorial ACTe, a museum dedicated to the history of the slave trade and slavery in the Caribbean, occupies the site of a 19th-century sugar refinery with a building whose sinuous forms evoke mangrove roots.

Walking further, you pass through Creole houses in the center, with their wrought-iron balconies and vivid colors typical of French Caribbean architecture, often recently restored.

Towards evening, a ferry carries you to nearby islands of the Guadeloupe archipelago, visible from the city port at sunset, between Grande-Terre and Basse-Terre.

The ACTe Memorial, opened in 2015, remains one of the world's few major museums entirely dedicated to the memory of the Atlantic slave trade, deliberately built on a site linked to the colonial sugar industry.

As a French department in every sense, Guadeloupe uses the euro and follows French law, yet sits over six thousand kilometers from Paris in the heart of the Caribbean.