One minute, it’s all Holland, a bustling port city named for a Dutch naval captain, restaurants serving delicacies like “bitterballen” and gouda cheese patties and “stroopwafels” and “pannenkoeken,” shops with big, red wooden shoes and shelves lined with “speculaas” and “jenever,” all of it feeling a little out of place under palm trees, amidst sultry breezes.
And then, a short drive later—weaving through the green center of the island, across a picturesque line of mountains—I’m in France, rolling with Peugeots and Renaults, in Grand Case. Here, streets are lined with galleries, as well as bistros and patios where diners sip good French wine and dive into plates heaped with frog legs, the blue of the Caribbean, just beyond, illuminating everything.