St. Martin/Maarten is mobbed. Most of the 37-square-mile island is too mountainous for construction and consequently almost every surface that is flat enough to build upon has been built upon. Anyone with a European Community passport who fancies the sun and the sea can pick up and move to St. Martin, just as they could move to a house in a province of mainland France. Adding to the crush, huge cruise ships dock in Philipsburg on the Dutch side and their passengers throng the gifte shoppes. You can escape some of this insanity by concentrating your tourism on the French side of the island. You won't escape the cruise ship passengers, however, because they come over in droves to gawk at the topless and nude women on the French beaches. -
Philip Greenspun, January 2003 
