Kenscoff

Kenscoff sits at around fifteen hundred metres on the road above Pétion-Ville, in the belt of terraced smallholdings that supplies the capital with cabbages, carrots, leeks and strawberries. The market on market days is the reason to come: it is a working produce market rather than a craft one, loud, packed and entirely local. The temperature is fifteen degrees cooler than the city on the plain, which is why the colonial-era and twentieth-century elite built summer houses here.

What you actually see

• The market - a working vegetable market supplying the capital, busiest on market days.
• The terraced hillsides - smallholdings stepped up the slopes around the town.
• The old houses - summer residences built up here for the cool air.
• The climate - cool days and cold nights at fifteen hundred metres.

When to go

Year round; the altitude keeps it comfortable in any season. Market days are the point and are worth asking about locally. Cloud usually comes in during the afternoon.

Honest expectations

The town itself is ordinary and the market is the whole of it. Roads up are steep, narrow and busy with produce trucks. There is little in the way of places to eat or stay.

Nearby

Furcy is further up the road, Boutilliers is below, and Petion-Ville is at the bottom.