This week’s dream: a charming coastal village in Belize
Low on taxes and high on “idiosyncracy”, the tiny Central American nation of Belize is popular with “romantics and wanderers”, but still remarkably uncrowded by tourists. And nowhere is its offbeat charm more pronounced than on the Caribbean peninsula of Placencia, says Horatio Clare in Condé Nast Traveller. This 18-mile long “straggle” of beaches, mangroves and lagoons ends in an isolated town with brightly painted wooden houses on stilts and a main street just “two people wide”. It is “one of those happy spots where the world famous put on their normal selves and relax”, and where traditional ways of life seem little changed by modernity, “at least on the surface”.
Inland, the Maya mountains “jumble under towering clouds”. Along the shore, places to stay range from simple $50 cabins to luxurious villas. There’s a “sublime” pool at the Itz’ana, a new hotel with a “beautiful” rattan- and plant-decorated restaurant. Better known is the Turtle Inn, an “easeful” boutique hotel owned by the film director Francis Ford Coppola where guests stay in thatched villas. Food and drink are central to the local Creole culture. You could sample bittas, a herbal root-based spirit that tastes of aniseed and coffee, and is rumoured to impart potency. But there are also several wine bars and a brilliant Italian-run gelateria.
The town peters out at the pier, where below, boys wade up to their waists casting lines into the “lazy” surf. On the beach, a craftsman sells conch-shell sculptures to “hippies made good”. Scattered not far offshore are several small islands, among them Coral Caye, a “scrap of sand and palms” with two cabins you can rent through Turtle Inn. There’s nothing to do there by day but snorkel or snooze in a hammock, and at night – “but for the occasional lip smack of the sea” – the silence is “absolute”. For more information on Belize, visit travelbelize.org.