A Day at LambLion Apartments in Antigua Starts in the Garden and Ends at English Harbour

A day at LambLion Apartments in Antigua starts in a garden full of fruit trees and ends wherever the island takes you, because nothing on Antigua is far from the middle of it. I stayed at LambLion in June 2026, and this is what a day there actually looks like, told from my own walk round the garden with the owners, Lionel and Lorilyn Walker.

I recorded the whole tour. Every quote below is theirs, word for word. Nothing here is a brochure. It is just what the morning, the garden and the evening were like.

Before the tour began I stood outside my apartment and said it into the camera.

I’m staying right there and look at how abundant this property is.

Cel, Queen of Vitality, on the first morning

That was before I knew half of what was growing. If you want the bigger picture first, meet the family behind LambLion and read why they built it. This piece is about the hours.

What is LambLion Holiday Apartments like? It feels like staying in a family garden, not a hotel

LambLion Holiday Apartments is a family run set of eleven self catering apartments on Freemans Main Road, Belleview Estate, in central Antigua, between the villages of Sea View Farm and Freemans Village. There are studios, one bedroom and two bedroom apartments, each with its own bathroom, air conditioning, a workspace and a kitchen or kitchenette. Around them is the garden. Mango, banana, breadfruit, soursop, golden apple, cherries, coconuts, and beds of herbs that Lorilyn planted herself.

Guests are welcome to pick what is in season. That one rule changes the shape of the whole day. You stop planning meals around a supermarket and start planning them around what is ripe. LambLion is also Green Globe certified, with solar power, solar hot water and rainwater harvesting, so the garden is watered and the showers are heated by the island itself.

A morning at LambLion starts with a coconut

Lionel opened the tour the way you would want any Caribbean morning to open. He took a coconut, held it over a glass, and talked us through it before he struck it.

I’m going to hit it and then hold the bowl under it. That’s basically what I’m going to do.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

The water ran into the glass and he handed it to me to taste. When he opened the coconut fully there was a little round ball inside, the start of a sprout. I knew it the moment I tasted it. It was a bit oily, because a sprouted coconut is oily. Lionel turned it over to show us where the shoot comes through the eye.

Coconuts are everywhere on the property, and Lionel knows each tree. If coconut is your thing, my guide to spending a month in Antigua covers what else you can cook with what grows here.

The birds get up earlier than you do

The most useful thing Lionel told me about mornings at LambLion was not about the view. It was about timing. Standing at the sugar apple tree, he showed me how to tell when the fruit is ready. The segments open up and leave spaces between them. Then he pointed at the ones that had gone black.

If you don’t pick them, the bird will pick them for you. The birds come out very early in the morning, so the birds will tend to come out before you.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

So if you want a ripe sugar apple, you go out early. Sugar apple, for anyone who has never had one, is a knobbly green fruit about the size of your fist, with white, sweet, custardy flesh around black seeds. It is a cousin of soursop and custard apple, and it is sweeter than both.

What fruit is ripe at LambLion? It depends on the month, and on the rain

The fruit at LambLion follows the seasons and the rain, so a June morning and a January morning taste different. On my tour in June the mangoes were weeks away, the green bananas were ready, and the golden apple trees were heavy with green fruit.

Golden apple is the fruit Jamaicans call June plum

Golden apple was new to me as a name. Lionel explained it straight away.

The Jamaicans call it June Plum, but we call it golden apple.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

It turns yellow when it is ripe, which is where the name comes from, and you can eat it ripe or turn it into a drink. Lionel makes the drink from green fruit too.

If the fruit is green but full, you can basically take the flesh off the seed, blend it, and that flesh will be green and give you green juice.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

Add water and a little sugar if you take sugar. The yellow fruit is sweeter and needs less. He was clear it is good without any at all.

The cherry tree fruits after rain

At the edge of the property Lionel showed me the cherry tree he grew up with, the Caribbean cherry rather than the smaller Surinam cherry that also grows here.

That’s the normal cherry tree that I grew up around. And every time rain falls, it would be a cherry.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

They make a red cherry drink from it. In his words, the kids love it because it is red. Rain matters for everything here. Lionel told me plainly that the garden only needs watering when the rain is not falling, and that the best time to water is the evening so the roots stay cool through the night.

Green bananas go in the pot with the skin on

Lionel grows several kinds of banana, and some are for eating green. He boils them in the skin, peels them, and the skins go to the compost.

We can boil them in the skin. Then we take the skin off to go into the compost and we can mash the banana.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

He also dices them for a banana salad with a little olive oil. It is the kind of breakfast that costs nothing when the bunch is hanging outside your door, which is a big part of why self catering here is so much cheaper. I worked out the numbers in my guide to the cost of self catering in Antigua.

Lorilyn grows the herbs Antiguans have always made tea from

Halfway through the morning the tour moved to Lorilyn’s herb beds, and the pace changed. Lionel talks about fruit like a farmer. Lorilyn talks about herbs like someone who learned them from her grandmother, which she did.

She started with balsam, a soft leafed bush that grows in among the lemongrass.

It’s very nice. Make a very refreshing drink.

Lorilyn Walker, owner of LambLion

Then two kinds of mint I had never heard of, side by side.

That’s the baby mint here. And that’s the mountain mint.

Lorilyn Walker, owner of LambLion

The baby mint, she said, is the gentle one given to babies when they are gassy. Then rosemary, cut at the top so it would spread, and sage. I told her I love sage. It is divine. Lorilyn told me Antiguans cook with it and use it as medicine too.

The paracetamol tree is what Lorilyn reaches for first

The plant I keep thinking about is the one Lorilyn calls the paracetamol tree. She told me she chews a leaf when she feels something coming on, the way other people reach for a tablet.

A lot of people, something happen, they say, give me a paracetamol. I just try and use a leaf.

Lorilyn Walker, owner of LambLion

That is the whole philosophy of the garden in one sentence. Before anything is bought, look at what is growing. Lionel and Lorilyn are not selling that as a wellness package. It is simply how they live, and as a guest you are invited into it. My longer story about the herb garden is on My Ideal World.

Lionel drinks his tea from the garden every day

Where Lorilyn knows the herbs, Lionel drinks them. He does not buy tea. He walks out and picks a combination, and it changes from day to day.

Sometimes I do herbal tea. I do combination with maybe two bay leaves, maybe one French thyme leaf, maybe two blades of lemongrass. And that might be my tea. Another day I do a different combination.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

Some days it is soursop leaves, some days a piece of mango leaf or guava leaf. His one constant is lemongrass, which Antiguans of his generation still call fever grass. You steep the whole leaves in hot water. No tea bag, no packaging, no shop.

If you stay at LambLion, ask him for his combination of the day. Then make your own.

Cooking at LambLion means cooking with what you just picked

Every apartment at LambLion has a kitchen or a kitchenette, which is what makes a day like this possible. A morning picking bananas and herbs turns into lunch an hour later. Studios have a kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, toaster, coffee maker and a portable stove. The one and two bedroom apartments have a full kitchen with a stove and oven. There is free laundry on site too.

For the full comparison with a resort, read self catering vs all inclusive in Antigua. The short version from my own stay is that a garden plus a kitchen beats a buffet.

What to do in Antigua during the day from a central base

The best way to spend the middle of a day at LambLion is to get in a car, because central Antigua puts every coast within about a 15 to 20 minute drive. You can be on a beach in about 15 minutes and in St John’s or at Nelson’s Dockyard in about 20.

From LambLion to	Roughly	Why go
Nearest beaches	About 15 minutes by car	A swim in the heat of the day
St John’s	About 20 minutes by car	The market, the cathedral and the quays. See my St John’s guide
Nelson’s Dockyard, English Harbour	About 20 minutes by car	History, the harbour and sunset
V. C. Bird International Airport	About 9 km	Easy arrivals and departures

For more ideas there is a full list of things to do in Antigua on the LambLion site, and my area by area guide to where to stay in Antigua explains why the middle of the island works so well as a base.

Or do nothing. The gazebo in the garden is shaded, and on a hot afternoon it is the best seat on the property.

What time is sunset in Antigua? In June it was close to half past six

Sunset in Antigua in June came at around half past six, and the sun rose a few minutes before six. I know because Lionel told me while we stood in the garden talking about how much light the fruit trees get.

We’re in Antigua and we have a lot of sun all the time. As you can see, we have sun right now. The sun is setting close to six thirty and it’s rising minutes to six.

Lionel Walker, owner of LambLion

Sunset comes earlier in the winter months, so check the time on the day. And watering, Lionel said, is best done in that evening light, so the plants stay cool through the night.

English Harbour is where I went for the sunset

When the tour finished I thanked Lionel and Lorilyn and told them where I was going next.

I’m gonna go out in about half an hour to English Harbour to see the sunset.

Cel, Queen of Vitality, at the end of the tour

English Harbour and Nelson’s Dockyard are about 20 minutes south of LambLion by car. The dockyard is a UNESCO World Heritage Site run by the National Parks Authority, and the hills above it at Shirley Heights are where Antigua gathers on Sunday evenings. Drive down in the late afternoon, walk the harbour, and you will be home at LambLion well before the night gets late.

If you are visiting in the winter, my guides to a winter getaway in Antigua and Christmas in Antigua cover what changes in the cooler months.

How to book a day like this at LambLion

You book a day like this by booking any of the eleven apartments directly on the LambLion apartments page, where a stay of two nights or more gets 15% off the nightly rate. These are the nightly rates listed on the site in October 2026.

Apartment	Sleeps	Listed rate	Booked direct, 2 nights or more
Studio	2	$110	$93.50
One bedroom	4	$120	$102
Twin bedroom	2	$130	$110.50
Two bedroom	5	$180	$153

Rates change with the season, so confirm on the booking page. You can also read the Hold The Throne listing for LambLion for how it measures against our sustainability criteria, or browse the garden page before you come.

Pick a sugar apple before the birds do. That is the whole lesson of a day at LambLion. The garden gives freely, but it rewards the people who get up and go out to meet it.