Habitation du Comte is the type of hotel where one could easily spend a month (or more) ... just sitting on the terrace ... writing a screenplay about a family from a bourgeois American suburb who decides that they've had enough of the rat race and move to an unpretentious Caribbean island where the weather is almost always perfect, the food is sublime, and life is a simple, pure, hedonistic pleasure. Habitation du Comte is a gem ... a true hideaway where one can open the windows, listen to the tree frogs and crowing roosters and rustling palms and imagine that all is well in the world. The food is exquisite, Anthony is a genial and generous host, and the setting will make you ponder why you should return to your quotidian existence. Nearby beaches are magnificent. Such a pity (or maybe not?) that Norwegian Airlines has discontinued nonstop NY-Guadeloupe flights. The secret is out - but now it will be just a bit harder to find. Habitation du Comte is most certainly worth all the effort it takes to find it ...

Great old house in the middle of sugar cane fields within two kilometers of Sainte Rose. Breakfasts great.
Restaurant not open Monday or Tuesday so we missed that but nearby suggestions were tops....La Terrasse in Sainte Rose in particular. Easy driving to the Jardin Botanique in Deshaies and wonderful beaches. Eugenie is a great hostess and the pool is superb. Down the hill, there are pigs and roosters and domino player and rhum. All friendly. Drive up the hill and you are in the middle of old Guadeloupe...agrarian, mountains, spectacular.

We spent five nights at The Habitation du Comte and found it immensely relaxing: a fine old Art Deco house on the site of a former sugar plantation, with ruins nearby (but not visitable). A shady garden with mature trees, where the heron hunts, hens pecking about marshalled by an attentive cockerel, and a little channel where fish compete for crumbs in the most charming way. Our room faced north (ideal for us: always shady) and we looked out onto breadfruit trees, vines and an enormous cactus as well as the usual palms etc. We loved it here and the laissez-faire feeling of the place. The pool was inviting. But best of all was the food. Absolutely wonderful, five-star Masterchef stuff, the best food I have ever had in a long and greedy life. The place was easy to find, well signposted from the main road, and between our scraps of French and the staff's soupcons of English there were no communication problems. Go there and eat your heart out!