Saturday we got to go to the Citadel!!! the picture is not of the actual citadel, but of one of the palaces around the Citadel. The Citadel, itself, can not, in no way, be captured on camera. We took camunette (tap tap) to Milot where we walked up to this palace and went thorugh it. Milot was beautiful with the mountains in the background disappearing into the fog, the water running in the river, and the streets.
Then, horses up the mountain to the Citadel. This was supposed to be a 7 km hike up, but it seemed to take much much longer than that. Those poor horses.
The views were amazing though, and other than one English speaking "tour guide" that we nicknamed "Homeboy" we had a great experience. The pictures are all amazing, still not serving justice to what it all really looked like. You have to go there to get the true experience.
It is crazy how there is such a change in scenery and surroundings here in Haiti. From the downtowns to places like the Ci
tadel and the beaches. Haiti truely could be a huge "tourist" spot if it wanted to be, easily....and if it had the support.
tadel and the beaches. Haiti truely could be a huge "tourist" spot if it wanted to be, easily....and if it had the support. Instead of putting those poor horses through the misery of walking all the way down the mountain, and spending more of our own money, we decided to foot it. This ended up taking 2 and 1/2 hours. WOW! It was worth it though, all of it.
Somehow, it always seems to rain on big trips. At least it didn't down pour on us, on this trip.
The night, we made it home and showed all our pictures to everyone at the house. This picture was taken inside the Citadel.
WOW!!
ReplyDeleteI had heard the story of this place, but I definitely had to go refresh my memory: Haiti's Sans-Souci Palace, one of the great palaces of the Enlightenment!
What an amazing story it is, too. Henri Christophe had made the ultimate social ascent: from slave, to waiter, to free drummer boy in the American Revolution, to soldier, to chief officer in the Haitian revolution against French sovereignty.
In 1807 he crowned himself king - "first black king of the New World." He set about to establish a black kingdom in northern Haiti, and to protect it from European intrusion from the French at sea, and from the mulatto nation forming in southern Haiti.
Henri Christophe commissioned his newly freed (?) workers to build the most magnificent fortress in the Americas, Citadelle Laferrière. The power of that citadel to discourage attack can be seen in those neat stacks of cannonballs. None were ever needed.
Henri commissioned a dozen palaces, too, the jewel of which was his Palais Sans-Souci - his "palace without worry" - conceived on a par with the Palace of Versailles or the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
The palace was completed in 1813, and the citadel in 1820.
King Henri Christophe I of Haiti, overcome by paranoia, committed suicide on October 8, 1820 on the grounds of his the "palace without worry."
His nephew, heir to the throne, was bayoneted to death by revolutionaries 10 days later, and the palace was ransacked.
In 1842, the worst quake in Haiti's history prior to this year left the "palace without worry" in ruins, and it was never repaired.
~m