Largely destroyed by fire in the early 1900s, and hit by a brutal hurricane in 1928, the island capital of GRAND-BOURG was rebuilt with a lot of two-storey cement structures, but has enough surviving wooden creole houses to remind visitors of its roots. It's a compact place, with a few narrow streets heading north of the harbour, where the peeling Notre-Dame-de-Marie-Galante church overlooks the town market (6am-mid-afternoon). There's little to do here by day except wander about and peruse the market goods, and even less to do by night. The main attraction is the ruins of the island's one-time richest sugar plantation, Château Murat (free), 1.5km east of town. At its acme, in 1839, over 300 slaves worked the surrounding fields; three examples of the shacks they lived in are behind the former kitchen.