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So what is in a name? In the case of La Desirade, an island off Guadeloupe, the name reveals a story that overflows with longing and hope, desperation and romance. La Desirade was the point that French trans-Atlantic ships would aim for when they headed across to the Caribbean. After weeks at sea it was the first sight of land that the sailors longed for, literally ‘the Desired One’. From there they would continue to their eventual destination, often Point-a-Pitre on Guadeloupe itself.

It’s a different state of affairs now that we can make it to the Caribbean in eight hours, but the longing is still there in a different form, in the weeks before you set off for the islands, as you look forward to the sun and warmth and the sand and sea. In Guadeloupe’s case there is also the unique allure of French Caribbean creole, the exotic mix of chic, style and an easy Caribbean life.

Guadeloupe is one of the two major French Caribbean islands (the other being Martinique of course) and it lies between Antigua and Dominica in the Lesser Antilles. Politically Guadeloupe is actually more than one island. The archipelago that stretches over 150 miles down the Eastern Caribbean. Offshore there are The Saints, Marie Galante and La Desirade and then farther north there are the two communes of St Barts and St Martin (on an island half shared with the Dutch).

The mainland of Guadeloupe itself is large by Eastern Caribbean standards, the largest island after Trinidad. It also has an advantage over other islands because Guadeloupe is really two completely different sorts of islands pushed together. There is Grande-Terre, the low-lying coral based land (like Antigua and St Martin, with beaches to match) and Basse-Terre, the soaring volcanic peaks mantled with rainforest like Dominica and St Lucia. The shape of the island is well known as a butterfly, each ‘wing’ being the different type.

In the well-protected inlet where the feet of the butterfly would be you will find the commercial capital of the island, Point-a-Pitre. It’s heart is at the seafront, La Darse. The trans-Atlantic ships don’t put in here any more, but the ferries that head for Guadeloupe’s offshore islands do and so during the day the place buzzes with modern maritime activity. The covered market is not far off too and so there is all the chatter and joking of market trading.

Directly behind la Darse you will find the Place de la Victoire with its stands of mango trees and tall royal palms. Guadeloupe’s revolutionary sympathies came to a highpoint here, when the island held a reign of terror, erected a guillotine in this square and executed many of the representatives of the Caribbean ‘ancient regime’, the planters. The slaves were freed for a while, but emancipation was reversed in 1802 by Napoleon.

The square is of course less fraught now, lined with cafes and restaurants, and you will see touches of an older Caribbean in the ice-cream vendors, who like to sell their wares from traditional wooden buckets filled with ice with a wind-up contraption that thickens and freezes the mix. If you want to join the fray, though, you can head out into the melee of downtown Pointe-a-Pitre, where it is impossible to find a parking space and there is barely room to walk on the pavement sometimes because it is so crowded. Suddenly you are in Paris. There is a bustle about the streets, where the shops have French names and they sell French designs and products.

If Point-a-Pitre is the heart of island life, the centres for the visitor are stretched along the beaches of the southern shore of Grande-Terre, to the east of the city. The marina at Bas du Fort just outside the town hums in the evenings. There is a long line of restaurants and bars right on the waterfront. Close by are many of the island’s nightclubs, which resound to local zouk music.

Bas du Fort and Gosier, the next town, are built up and so you really need to go farther east to get the best of the easy-going beach life. St Anne has a small raffish edge to it, with some small and charming places to stop over and stay behind the screen of sea-grape and palm trees. Farther out along the coast you will come to another town, St Francois, where there is a magnificent string of restaurants that sit cheek by jowl on the waterfront, vying with one another for custom, but each with the same view through the windsurfers out to sea.

The sand of Grande-Terre, bright white and powder-soft, results from the geological make-up of the island, which is coral-based limestone, like Antigua and St Martin farther north. This is then ground down by wave action and munched up by parrot fish. Inland you will see the old coral formations in weird hillock designs, not too different from the cockpit country of Jamaica, like shaggy green egg-boxes. This is the proper Guadeloupe, where the tiny rum shops are open to all callers day and night for a little tipple and tattle.

In the east Grande-Terre tapers to a peninsular where you will find some of the island’s best beaches. You can spot them by the lines of cars every weekend, when the Guadeloupeans themselves go to the beach. Untypically for the Caribbean (though admittedly more typically for France) there are even a couple of spots frequented by nudists. From the Pointe des Chateaux you can see La Desirade, a table mountain with sweeping curved slopes, out in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s not a particularly desirable place now unless you really want to hide-away in dozy and throughly low-key French Caribbean style.

If La Desirade tells a tale of longing, the names of Guadeloupe’s two islands hides one of nautical and historical confusion. Its two islands are called Basse-Terre and Grande-Terre. No doubt, with even a school-standard grasp of French, you’d expect Basse-Terre to be the low-lying one and Grande-Terre to be the huge, volcanic one. You’d be wrong. The reason for the oddity is the fact that in old French nautical terminology, the ‘basse terre’ is the French term for windward, the lower ground with regard to the wind.

And so Basse-Terre is a vast, volcanic Titan which soars to nearly 5000 feet, the highest point in the Eastern Caribbean. The terrain is completely different of course to Grande-Terre. It is mantled with rainforest and there are rivers, lakes and waterfalls. The main settlements are along the coastline and the population is far lower over there.

For the visitor Basse-Terre offers a completely different experience. The beaches are set in steep-sided bays and the sand is darker than the white coral sand of Grande-Terre. Basse-Terre is also less developed than its other half and so it makes a good contrast. There are far fewer large hotels. The area of Grande Anse in the north west has put a bid in lately as the place to be on the island and you will find a small collection of friendly off-beat hotels which are set in lush, jungle-like gardens. They are miles away from the ‘action’, but instead there are plenty of charming waterfront restaurants, some of which use the best of the fish caught right offshore in the fishing villages.

The confused logic of Guadeloupe continues in the town of Basse-Terre (the major town on the island of Basse-Terre). Despite being a fraction of the size of Pointe-a-Pitre it is actually the capital of the Region of Guadeloupe and its archipelago. Not in doubt, however, is how important the place once was. Just to look at the size of Fort Delgres which was built to defend it. In fact Basse-Terre is a dozy and quite charming town, though you will need a strong heart to cope with it, because its streets clamber from the sea-level half way up the slope of the Soufriere, the island’s resident and occasionally active volcano.

There are a number of ‘Maisons’ worth looking out for in Guadeloupe. They are not houses as such, more like museums. In Matouba, a town higher up the slopes of the Soufriere, the ‘Maison du Volcan’ is dedicated to the volcanoes in general and the Soufriere, just above it, in particular. The only problem with the ‘Maisons’ is that descriptions are usually only written in French which makes them difficult to understand if you are not a French-speaker.

Farther north, near Pointe Noire, is my favourite ‘Maison’, the Maison de Cacao, which shows the story of cocoa and chocolate, explaining its history and how it is cultivated and listing its beneficial properties of the bean, including serotonin, an anti-stress agent which occurs naturally in cocoa. (The idea of an anti-stress agent in the Caribbean seems a bit strange, but perhaps they drink it for other reasons.) You also see how cocoa is prepared in the traditional Caribbean way, which ends up in blocks which you cut up and make into a ‘tea’. There are tastings of course.

Another tropical crop which makes an interesting story is the banana, which you can see farmed all over Basse-Terre. At the Plantation Grand-Cafe whole alleys of the crop are on view, including exotic species of banana from other parts of the world. When they are harvesting you can see the agricultural process at work - they wash, trim and then pack the huge bunches into ‘hands’ for packing into boxes. If you are interested in the story of rum (an essential West Indian product, of course, of which Guadeloupe is still a large producer), then you can go next door to the small Distillerie Longueteau (best during the season), or you can head up to the Musee du Rhum in the north of Basse-Terre island, which describes ‘sweet bamboo’ and how it became such a vital product in the 17th and 18th century as a sweetener for fashionable new drinks like tea, coffee and cocoa.

Most people miss out on these parts of Basse-terre because they are heading straight over to the area of Mahaut and the Ilet de Pigeon, a beach and scuba diving area and the usual route cuts straight through the mountains on the Route de la Traversee. If you do, you should pause on the way over. It climbs up into the rainforest, where huge ferns explode at the roadside and grasses grow to five feet high. Clouds always seem to be hovering above the mountains here and so often you climb into cloud. Rivers run and cascade among the huge trees of the rainforest. It is well worth taking a walk along one of the guided trails that lead into the rainforest from the Maison de la Foret (the Maison itself is a little technical).

Many of the trails lead to waterfalls, but the finest is actually off the road further down, in among the banana plantations. Called the Saut de la Lezarde, it is a 30 foot cascade which drops into a huge open-sided caverns with trees and creepers hang off the walls and a huge pool. It is well worth heading down for a picnic and swim.

The remotest and the most charming part of Guadeloupe is the North West of Basse-Terre, where you will find fishing villages. Best of all, grab a drink at one of the beach bars in the area, perhaps for a sunset rum-punch before you head back to a hotel on Grande-Terre. Here among the palm trees you can join in the local sport of drink and discussion. Take a local rum punch, a ‘ponch’ and settle back and admire the waves as they lap onto the sand in front of you.

Then the longing, your own Desirade, will be satisfied.

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