Daniele Somenzi's St Martin

St Martin The landing with an Air France Airbus A340 at this island is breathtaking, and it's also the main reason I came here.

Half Dutch and half French, this Caribbean island has a peculiarity: the east part, at the back of the airport, is connected by a single little road; from the opposite side you can't get there because there's the sea. The problem is that this road is right at the end of the airport runway, which also welcomes planes as big as the jumbo, and the same runway can't be extended because on the opposite side, besides there still being the sea, there are also the mountains. The result is that the runway is the shortest in the world where jumbos land, and consequently all the planes must already be very low for landing, and whoever passes along that road or sunbathes on the nearby beach sees the great aircraft landing just 15 metres above their head.

A delight for me, who is a fan of aeroplanes. Mauro and I brought 2 Graziella bicycles from Italy which, as soon as reassembled, took us around the French part of the island. To visit the other part too, we hire a car for a day. It's curious because here there's no customs, and the border between Holland and France is marked by a kind of tombstone with the two flags. Besides, in Marigot, the French capital, French is spoken, but everyone knows Dutch as well as English; then returning to the Dutch zone we land at Philipsburg with its beautiful beaches; here every day some cruise ships arrive that disembark thousands of tourists from all over the world. Many residents are equipped to offer tourists various entertainment services and little souvenir shops, as well as island tours.

Driving the car, here you drive on the right like back home, I noticed a thing that's quite original: the yellow bus, like the American school ones, every time it stops in front of us to let the kids off, puts on the left indicator and turns across the road, preventing oncoming traffic from continuing; practically at every stop it blocks everyone and obviously you can't overtake, so that the kids crossing the road from the opposite side aren't in danger of being hit. Then it sets off again and returns to its right lane, and everyone here on the island knows about this clever system and is patient.

From up on the hill looking at the 4 cruise ships moored in the port, I notice that the biggest in the world at the time is also there, the Queen Elizabeth 2.

Returning to the end of the runway where we're staying at the Caravanserai hotel right next to it, I have fun standing behind the planes that, giving maximum thrust of the engines to take off, push me back with the strong wind; I manage to get a few photos of me on the beach with an Airbus A340 10 metres above my head.

The last day, the guy who works at the hotel buys both my bicycles for 40$, since we don't need them anymore.

The girl at the reception shows off her record 6 cm twisted fingernails; she says she hasn't cut them for 3 years; she certainly doesn't wash the dishes by hand, that's for sure.

The day of departure has come, of the first of the 2 times I go to the island of St Martin.

bye bye