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With beaches, forts and forest-smothered hills, the area around Castries is well worth exploring, and most sites, thanks to good public transport links, are reachable without a car. The busy Castries-Gros Islet Highway runs north, passing Vigie Peninsula and a string of unappealing industrial sites, shops, restaurants, hotels and schools before swinging to the coast to run parallel to sweeping Choc Bay . Fringed to the north by Labrellotte Point, a sheltered bay hosting a couple of luxury resorts, and to the south by Vide Bouteille Point , site of St Lucia's long-destroyed first fort , built by the French in 1660, Choc Bay is a handsome 1.2-mile stretch of often secluded sand. From Choc Bay the Castries-Gros Islet Highway swings into the suburban Sunny Acres area, home to one of the island's larger shopping complexes, Gablewoods Mall , particularly good for groceries. Just past the mall, the winding but relatively smooth Allan Bousquet Highway strikes into the interior. Ten minutes' drive from the coast is the village of Babonneau , a small farming community huddled into the central hills of the island's northern half and worth visiting for both the sweeping hill views and for a taste of rural St Lucia. Several rivers flow through the hills around the settlement, and some say that Babonneau is a Patois version of the old French phrase barre bon eau , meaning, roughly, "mountain ridge, good water". Set high in the hills east of Castries at Morne Pleasant, the Folk Research Centre (or Plas Wiches Foklo , to give it its Patois name) is a museum and cultural centre set in an old estate house originally owned by the eminent Deveaux family (Mon-Fri 8.30am-4.30pm; donations accepted; tel 758/453-1477). Dedicated to preserving the culture and language of St Lucian Creole, the centre houses a small but comprehensive museum : exhibits include a reproduction of a traditional ti-kay hut, and examples of indigenous musical instruments. The diminutive research library upstairs, accessible during opening hours, holds one of the island's best collections of books, research papers and photographs relating to St Lucia's folklore and history.
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