Montserrat, 23 September 2016

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This is the entrance to Montserrat Springs Hotel, available to visit because it’s just outside of the exclusion zone.

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It was once an exclusive hotel with guests such as the Rolling Stones, and featured its own thermal springs.

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There was no-one at the reception desk when we visited so we couldn’t book a room.

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The decor may have faded a little.

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An accounts book is open at June 1995.

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The floor was renovated some years ago with the addition of a layer of volcanic mud.

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I think this was the dining room.

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… leading outside towards the pool.

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Diving is not recommended here any more because the mud is not as forgiving as water.

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But the salubrious fittings remain.

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From outside the hotel, some views of the ruined parts of Plymouth that were not entirely buried in the lahars and pyroclastic flows.

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An old sugar factory. it would seem.

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It looks inviting but is too far inside the exclusion zone to be available to visit.

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The previous post covered the city of Plymouth, abandoned due to the volcanic eruption and the one before detailed the remarkable history of Montserrat.  There was an even more dramatic eruption in 1903 on an island not that far away.  Mount Pelée in Martinique erupted in that year, not far from the main town of Saint-Pierre.  They knew an eruption was taking place but expected lava, to be blocked by a valley, and they didn’t know about strato volcanoes and pyroclastic flows.  Only one person survived, protected by the thick walls of the town prison.  More detail on that in a post in a different blog here.

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