Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens

It’s best to have a guide lead you through these gorgeous, privately owned botanical gardens, located a little over a mile east of Soufrière. Not because of the size (they’re compact), but because you’ll want someone who can identify the wealth of tropical plants, from soaring banana, plantain and palm trees to fuchsia crab-claw plants, wax roses and multi-hued hibiscus and allamanda. Part of an estate given to three French brothers by Louis XIV in 1713, Diamond Falls has been in the same family for nearly three hundred years. There’s also a waterfall and a natural mineral springs on-site, but what I loved most was wandering through the canopies of countless shades of green that were interrupted occasionally by a brilliant splash of color or the hurried movements of a hummingbird.