ST. KITTS AND NEVIS

Imagine a country inn where rooms brim with antiques and are cooled by a gentle breeze off a wide porch. You ease into a wicker chair, sip an icy drink, and enjoy a view unbroken by roads, electrical lines, or even fellow travelers.

This is St. Kitts, an island that offers all the country comforts and bed-and-breakfast luxury you might look for in a New England getaway. Here, however, palms replace pines and color comes, not from scarlet leaves, but from azure seas, beaches in shades of both black and white, and verdant forests that engulf the island.

St. Kitts and Nevis, its partner in this two-island nation, boast one of the Caribbean's largest concentrations of plantation homes. The islands were once dotted with sugar plantations and greathouses, but today these stately manses have been transformed into elegant bed-and-breakfast inns especially popular with European vacationers and with Americans looking to experience a slice of the Caribbean "the way it used to be." Don't look for reggae lessons, limbo contests or mixology classes at these properties; instead, expect a sophisticated atmosphere similar to a fine country inn where the emphasis lies, not on providing fun for its guests, but in pointing the way for independent travelers to make their own discoveries.

Just two miles away from St. Kitts lies the tiny island of Nevis (pronounced NEE-vis). Columbus first named this island because of the ever-present cloud that circled Mount Nevis, giving it almost a snow-capped look. Today the cloud still lingers over the mountain peak. Home to only 9,000 residents, this country cousin has a charming atmosphere all its own, plus a good share of plantation houses where guests can enjoy a look back at Caribbean history.

St. Kitts and Nevis are both mountainous by Caribbean standards and rich with undeveloped regions. Both islands are home to small rain forests, although visitors will find plenty of tropical foliage wherever they venture.

Shaped like a guitar, St. Kitts is the more developed of the two. Most of its 35,000 residents live in the town of Basseterre (pronounced bos-tear) on the south shore (just where the guitar handle meets the body.)

South of Basseterre, the island slims, the land becomes drier, and the population scattered. This is the South Peninsula, an area that, until a few years ago, was accessible only by boat. Today a modern highway makes this region available to motorists. Here you'll find some of the island's most beautiful, remote beaches and roadside overlooks with views of both sides of the island and the Caribbean Sea to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the north. Several hotel chains have purchased property in this area, but it remains, at least for today, remote and isolated. Animal lovers, the South Peninsula is your best chance for spotting vervet monkeys. Look in the underbrush and not in the trees, however. These monkeys don't have a prehensile tail so are usually spotted on the ground.

The north end of St. Kitts is the most lush, due to soil that owes much of its fertility to a volcano named Mount Liamuiga, a Carib word that means "fertile island." The remote reaches of Mount Liamuiga are home to St. Kitts' rain forest.

For all the tropical splendor of St. Kitts, Nevis is even more verdant. Tall coconut palms cover hills carpeted in tropical undergrowth.