With a three-week Italy trip with the kids on the horizon, Shelly and I decided to carve out a week for ourselves first. The grandparents took the kids in Chicago, and we headed to sunny Barbados for a couples getaway. We spent a couple of days exploring plantation estates, sipping the world’s oldest rum, cooling off horses in the ocean, and catching some spectacular sunsets. Here’s how our Bajan escape unfolded.

1. Stepping back in time at St Nicholas Abbey

St Nicholas Abbey isn’t actually an abbey – it’s a plantation house built in 1658, one of only three remaining Jacobean-style buildings in the Western Hemisphere. The estate sits in the northern parish of St Peter, about a 45-minute drive from our west coast base.

We started with a guided tour of the great house filled with antique furniture and family heirlooms, and were quickly reminded of its dark history of slavery and indentured labor. In the mid 17th century Barbados was the center of the global sugar trade, built on the backs of slaves that were brought over from Africa to cultivate the sugarcane plantations on the fertile island.

Then rather jarringly the tour switched gears to rum, and we learned how they still produce it using traditional methods. Sugarcane is still crushed with a steam-powered mill from 1890, the juice fermented in copper pots, and the rum is then left to age in oak barrels. The tasting room was our last stop. We sampled their 5, 8, and 12-year aged rums. The 12-year had strong notes of vanilla and caramel that went down easy.

2. Comparing rums at Mount Gay Distillery

Mount Gay claims to be the ‘world’s oldest commercial rum distillery’, with records dating back to 1703. The distillery leans overtly into this claim, and no one has presumably disputed it so far. The tasting tour showed us a more industrial-scale rum production process – a contrast to St Nicholas Abbey’s smaller boutique operation. Here they blend pot still and column still distillation to maintain consistency across massive production runs for worldwide export.

We partook in the premium tasting, sampling their Eclipse, Black Barrel, and XO offerings. The XO triple cask blend was particularly complex – a blend of rums aged 10-30 years with tasty notes of tobacco, coffee, and dark fruit. At the $200 a bottle sticker price, we opted to admire it from afar, and instead picked up a more economical option from duty free before our flight out.

3. Wading on horseback into the ocean at dawn

One morning we woke early before first light to catch a spectacle unique to Barbados: thoroughbred racehorses being led into the ocean for their daily saltwater soak. This is one of those touristy-sounding attractions that in reality turned out to be one of our favorite experiences in Barbados.

The horses from the nearby stable are given a daily saltwater bath that supposedly helps with rehabilitation from injuries. The horses waded in up to their bellies, then lay down in the water, looking completely relaxed and even rolling slightly in the surf.

Sitting bareback on a horse and wading into the spray of ocean waves wasn’t exactly something we had prepped for. However at the prodding of the horse handlers, we relented and climbed atop the graceful and gentle beasts. We had to tightly hold on to the horse’s mane, since there was no saddle or stirrups. Our reward was quite the surreal experience – sitting atop a horse as it ambled along in the ocean while the first rays of the sun appeared.

4. Making a cricketing pilgrimage to Kensington Oval

Kensington Oval in Bridgetown is hallowed ground for cricket fans. The stadium hosted the 2007 Cricket World Cup, and has seen some of the sport’s most memorable moments over the century and half of its existence. Giant bronze statues of local legends Gary Sobers, Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith greeted us at the entrance, a powerful reminder of the heydays of the world beaters from Barbados. Shelly was gracious enough to humor my cricketing nerd fanboy moment during my pilgrimage to the Mecca of West Indies cricket.

5. Catching picturesque Caribbean sunsets

Barbados’ west coast delivered consistently spectacular sunsets. We made it an evening ritual to find a spot with a rum cocktail and watch the sun drop into the Caribbean Sea. Most nights we didn’t even have to leave our resort, with the best views of the setting sun easily enjoyed from our balcony.

6. Dining on the beach at Fish Pot restaurant

The Fish Pot in Little Good Harbour was our best meal on the island. The restaurant sits right on the beach in the north, built into an old fort with stone walls and ocean views from every table. We sampled the fresh catch focused menu, savoring succulent prawns and perfectly cooked Mahi Mahi, while the ocean waves lapped the shore right below.

 

Barbados delivered on every front – the potent rums were excellent, the rich history was captivating and the famed beaches lived up to their reputation. Having a week to ourselves meant we could truly relax and move at our own pace. It was the perfect reset before three weeks of family travel through Italy – an apt vacation before the vacation.