There are also worthy exhibitions on the local Indian population and the geology of the ABC islands.Ītrium Café: Indulge your sweet tooth with decadent treats such as French macarons, chocolate bonbons and gourmet cupcakes. Displays include paintings by early-20th-century Dutch masters, a carillon and a menagerie of other musical instruments, and a hat-making diorama (hats were a source of income for many women up until WWI). The Curaçao Museum in western Otrobanda is housed in a 19th-century sailors' hospital. Also, much of the advertising and store signage is hand painted, giving the streets perky, individual characters. The maze of streets and lanes wiggling back from the waterfront are fun to wander - stores and houses run the gamut from pastel and spruce to crumbling and spooky. Otrabanda's charm extends beyond its brochure-ready buildings. The Riffort, a defensive post on the entrance to the sea, has been used as a telegraph station, radio station, desalination plant, WWII officers' digs, scout hall and is now partly occupied by a ritzy restaurant. Most of the city's historic buildings are in Otrobanda, including the 1734 St Anna Basilica, the oldest in the Antilles. The area's low-rise architecture is the result of an 18th century order not to obstruct Fort Amsterdam's line of fire.
Otrabanda became Willemstad's first suburb in the late 17th century, when lepers and convicts banished from Punda began moving here. Head west and across the channel to Otrobanda ('other side'). You can even dive or snorkel in this controlled environment if the sea seems a little frisky. At the eastern end of Willemstad is the Sea Aquarium, where you can get a preview or a recap on the creatures of the deep. Vendors make the sea trip from Venezuela every morning with fresh fruit, vegetables and seafood - the stalls aren't actually floating, but they're close enough to the water to justify the name. Also in Punda is the wonderful floating market (mercado flotante). You can see a cannonball lodged in the wall of the fort chapel, a memento of Captain Bligh's 26-day siege in 1804. Fort Amsterdam was once the centre of town and now houses the main offices for the government of the Netherlands Antilles. There's an adjacent Jewish Cultural Museum. Its interior, including the original pipe organ and brass chandeliers, has been carefully preserved, and the floor is covered in footstep muffling sand. The 1732 Mikvé Emanuel Synagogue is the oldest in the Americas. Punda is the oldest part of the city, crowded with 17th- and 18th-century Dutch-style buildings. Punda, to the east, and Otrobanda, to the west, are connected by a quaint pontoon bridge known as the Swinging Old Lady - she cocks a leg for boats. The capital of the Netherlands Antilles and one of a select number of urban areas on UNESCO's World Heritage List, it's divided in two by capacious St Anna Bay, the largest harbour in the Caribbean. Select to open Willemstad pictures - Opens a dialogįorget the squat resorts muscling each other along the coast and don't be put off by the disjointed shambles of badly signed roads: Willemstad is gorgeous.
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