I first heard of Montserrat while reading CREEM magazine. Montserrat was the home of AIR Studios, where the English bougeoisie "rock" musicians went to record albums in the 1980s. (The Police, Paul McCartney, and Elton John all recorded there.) Plymouth is the capital of Montserrat and was the only port entry. I missed the news in 1997 when a volcano covered 80% of the city with over 4 feet of lava.
Plymouth is a future archaeological site, although it seems that it would be so cost-prohibitive that the city will most likely never be dug out. It could be a great above-ground urban exploration site, but it is fenced off, due to possible danger of further volcanic action.
Ed brought Plymouth, Montserrat to my attention, so thanks to him for most of the links.
For basic info, start at the Wikipedia entry.
A few photos of the destruction can be seen here.
This page is encouraging tourists to now-safe Montserrat. It provides a nice contrast to the previous photos.
This is a first-person testimonial to vacationing in Montserrat (two different photos of the destruction available). (I like the claim that if one drinks the water of Montserrat, he or she will return to the island.)
Here's a nice Flickr shot of the landscape, taken from the Caribbean sea.
Here's the entire collection of the tagged "Plymouth Montserrat" Flickr photos. This is a great look-through.
Image is of postcard created and photographed by Qule Pejorian and available to share and remix via the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
