St. Barthelemy - or St. Barths to its friends

St. Barthelemy is an island in the French West Indies and is a favourite playground for the rich and powerful.

Below you'll see the very short runway - this must be fun for the pilot!

The final two minutes of the approach to St Barths is extremely dramatic. The plane clears a very steep hill, banks, then dips abruptly to a tiny runway the size of a New York City block, which ends on the beach - St Jean's beach, as regular users will know. Coming in, the plane flies so low passengers can practically read the headlines on the magazine of beach dweller - though sunbathers are advised not to lay around on the part of the beach right by the end of the runway!

This little island is of international renown, a home and haven to the rich and famous, where they go to get away from the rest of the world. Houses here are among the most wanted in the world. Yet St Barths is a mere 25 square kilometers - Manhattan is twice as large.

It is a duty free port and often called the Paris of the Caribbean. Hermes and Cartier as there, plus many small boutiques, such as the legendary Stephane and Bernard.

As well as private residences it has the Guanahani Hotel, with its superb restaurant, Bartolomeo. For more fun, there's Le-Ti St Barths restaurant - where the Satuday night parties are legendary.

And now Roman Abramovich has splashed out £55 million on a 70-acre estate on the island. It has a large villa, Balinese-style bungalows, swimming pools and two floodlit tennis courts.

And it looks out onto Gouverneur Bay, where Roman will be able to moor his new yacht - the fabulous 557-foot long Eclipse, officially the largest yacht in the world. How about that for thinking big?

Next post, we'll have a look at the Eclipse in detail.