Fort Amsterdam

It is our last full day in Curacao today. We head into Willemstad for our trolley tour. First, we have breakfast at Di Marino’s and then get our stuff together to go into town. We had a thunderstorm last night and it is extremely humid today. We have had rain off and on this morning but it gave us a chance to check out our umbrellas.

We take a taxi into town and he drops us off right at the trolley. It turns out that Victor, our VIP manager, has booked us a private tour! We have the whole trolley to ourselves with our own tour guide. Marvelous! Off we go! The lady tells us about the different houses and when they were built. Apparently, many people of the Jewish community came to Curacao to start businesses in the 1800’s, they built these beautiful houses all in the downtown area. They have been handed down to different generations or sold off over the years. Many have been converted into government offices or cultural centers.

We stop at the Queen Of The Most Holy Rosary Cathedral. We head inside to take a look around. The church is plain but beautiful. The stations of the cross are all paintings done by a Flemish painter but the artist is unknown. The altar has beautiful stained glass but the sun is not shining on us at the moment so our imagination will have to do. Back in the trolley we head to the meeting point which is outside of Fort Amsterdam. We check out the fort where the solders were housed in barracks and protected the island from the British. There's even a cannon ball lodged in the side of the building. Now it is government offices and the residence of the Prime Minister and the Governor General of the Netherlands.

When we finish with the tour, we head out on our own for a little walk. We check out some of the souvenir shops and back streets. They have unique street art on many of the buildings and that is as much of the culture as the food. They are also decorating for Christmas now as well. It seems out of place to see a Christmas tree in 40 degree weather. They have a street market as well where local people sell their wares along the waterfront. We make our purchases and head back to the main harbour area.

When we were at the resort this morning, I saw a wonderful 3 mast schooner going by. It was quite hazy but I tried to get pictures the best I could. Well as we head back to the harbour, I see the same schooner parked here. You can check out the two pictures (side by side) to see it at sail and in the harbour.

We stop at a waterfront café to rest and get something cold to drink and something to eat. The area here has a port area where the cruise ships anchor. There is currently one in port so the main area here is going to be busy. The town is split in two and connected with a swing bridge. This is an amazing engineering design where the bridge will detach from one side (with pedestrians and all) and swing open to allow smaller boats to enter the harbour. They have a warning horn that the bridge will swing and away it goes. I’m not sure of how often it does this but it is kind of unique. We have a nice lunch and some margaritas and watch the bridge swing and the boats come and go.

After a nice lunch we are ready to head back to the resort. It has been a very hot and humid day today and we both desperately need some air conditioning. We will miss this heat in the middle of February at home!

We have a rest and then head out for dinner. We head out to Di Marino’s for another wonderful meal. However, we are disappointed when we find it closed. The buffet is also closed. Apparently the buffet is being held on the beach tonight. It is a nice evening so this should be okay. They have tables set up on the beach, however they have crammed 10 to a table which is not doable if they are all adults. We arrive at 6:00 PM but apparently dinner was not ready yet. So, we picked a spot and waited along with everyone else. This of course created a line that wove through the tables so that you waited a good half hour in line to get your dinner. They ran out of plates half way through the line so more waiting. This was badly planned and poorly executed. If this is something they do on a regular basis it should be better planned. The other issue is trying to move your chairs in and out of the table while on sand! The chairs inevitably sank into the sand so you were off kilter. People in wheel chairs and with walkers had even more issues. This wouldn’t have been so bad if they had the other restaurants open for people to choose where to eat.

Well tomorrow is our last day here. So, I head to the casino and Gabi heads back to the room to pack. At least one of us is responsible!Read more