USVI: Mise En Scene

I took a rather large number of pictures on the recent trip, and I’m very happy with at least some of them. I’m uploading the raw images to Flickr, but I’m also cropping and tweaking them in GIMP for posting here. Because, well, it’s my blog, and if I want to try to make you all jealous of my tropical vacation, I can do that.

This is the first post in what will be a series of vacation-picture posts, from our recent trip to St. John in the US Virgin Islands. This time out, I’ll just talk about where we stayed, just outside of Cruz Bay:

i-d33b9724909dfc3c07324ceca60d7f88-sm_cruz_bay.jpg

Our rooms were at Estate Lindholm, a small B&B on a hill outside of town:

i-4b87daed01757f8a9c1782d3cbe62f6c-sm_estate_lindholm.jpg

It’s the cluster of four white-roofed buildings in the center of that picture. The big hill in the background is Caneel Hill, about which more later. You can get a better feel for the arrangement from a side view (click for a larger image):

i-f3702cd4f0d98df5371f21ce160baccd-sm_lind_point.jpg

The B&B is the collection of buildings at the upper right. The previous two pictures were taken from an overlook out on the point, pretty much directly above the mast of the red sailboat.

As previously noted, our room had a balcony, which is the one on the right in this picture:

i-805143cb10ace4b7adb0db2bc9bfa271-sm_room_view.jpg

which was taken from the pool deck:

i-f9d1e8f95bc75530c1bb24e4c8705945-sm_pool_deck.jpg

which has a pretty nice view of its own:

i-a89daef76247faca09b7d50213cae750-sm_pool_view.jpg

As the description suggests, breakfast was provided, and served on a patio above the pool, which was well supplied with flowering plants on an overhead trellis:

i-8c8f799c75e2a14ff51365d099a039ec-sm_lindholm_flowers.jpg

These were popular with hummingbirds, about which more later. The patio also offered its own nice views, which provides the random artsy shot of this set (click for larger image):

i-3f09ecf95ddcb93471385cfa05fafe68-sm_tree.jpg

And, of course, they have sunsets (click for larger images):

i-943d4e53bc8f0e48038b1678bee9240b-sm_sunset1.jpg

i-fc11a3f6c668e33aa1ceecbb0cc0ff5b-sm_sunset2.jpg

(Those were taken from a scenic overlook right next to the B&B.)

All in all, it was a pretty good place to stay for a week, and if you’re looking for a Caribbean vacation spot, I’d definitely recommend it. As for what we did while there, that will wait for another post…