Bermuda Port Cities

Bermuda | Bermuda & Caribbean

Hamilton, Bermuda
Hamilton is the hub of Bermuda, serving as both its capital and commercial center. While it's not a large city (population 15,000), it has a surprising amount of hustle and bustle - at least compared to the rest of the island. Locals refer to it simply as 'town' - 'going to town' means, without a doubt, going to Hamilton.

Attractions include the Bermuda Cathedral, a weighty neo-Gothic building that is one of the city's dominant landmarks; the Bermuda Historical Society Museum, which contains models of the ill-fated Sea Venture; and the Bermuda National Gallery, containing works by Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds and Winslow Homer.

Fort Hamilton is a substantial hilltop fort with a bird's-eye view of Hamilton Harbor. It's one of a series of fortifications erected in the mid-19th century during a period of rising tensions between Britain and the USA. The ramparts are mounted with 10-inch rifled muzzleloader guns, capable of firing 400-pound cannonballs through iron-hulled vessels. These devastating weapons were, fortunately, never required.

King's Wharf, Bermuda
After the American War of Independence, the British were no longer able to use ports in their former American colonies, so they chose this site on hilly Ireland Island at the western tip of Bermuda as their 'Gibraltar of the West.' It served as a dockyard facility and resupply depot for ships heading between Nova Scotia and the British West Indies. The fort was built between 1814 and 1863 by nearly 10,000 convicts who were quartered in unspeakable conditions on prison ships stationed in the deepwater cove.

The fort is built of limestone blocks in Georgian style and was first used by the British navy as a base to launch their raid on Washington, DC, in 1814. It later served as a North Atlantic base during both World Wars but was abandoned as a costly outpost in 1951. Since then the buildings have been renovated and given a second life. The dockyard now includes the fascinating Bermuda Maritime Museum, located in the fort's former keep, an atmospheric pub, a movie theatre, a craft market and the Bermuda Snorkel Park.

St. George's, Bermuda
It was a British admiral, Sir George Somers, whose shipwreck in 1609 near the site of St. George may have inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest. Little St. George's Island went on to become the thriving capital of the new British colony of Bermuda. Today it is no longer the capital. That's just as well, since it has managed to retain the charming look and feel of Elizabethan England.

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Bermuda & Caribbean

Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas (NCL’s Private Island)
This unspoiled paradise of white sandy beaches and coconut palms is home to lizards, seagulls, neoncolored fish, and a few very fortunate guests of NCL. For this is our own private island. Snooze in a hammock under a shady palm tree.

Learn to snorkel in a peaceful cove where tropical fish weave around equally colorful coral and sea fans. Dance the limbo and enjoy a beachside barbecue. Circle the island in a kayak or sailboat. This is the life!

Newport, Rhode Island
The Breakers. Mrs. Astor's New York 400. Colonel Vanderbilt's America's Cup yachts racing across Narragansett Bay. This is Newport, once America's supreme summer retreat for the rich and elite during the "Gilded Age." Today, Newport is a bit more egalitarian, but sleek yachts with billowing sails still race around the bay, and the Italianate mansions built by Stanford White and Richard Morris Hunt continue to dominate the shoreline like graying grand dowagers. Visit the Great Houses. Then tour colonial Newport, a delightful historic district containing America's oldest synagogue, and Hammersmith Farm, where Jacqueline Bouvier married John F. Kennedy.

Oranjestad, Aruba
Aruba has a growing number of fans, from honeymooners and sun worshippers to snorkelers, sailors, and weekend gamblers. When you lie back along the seven-mile stretch of white-sand beach, you'll enjoy an average 82°F daytime temperature, trade winds, and very low humidity. Moreover, peddlers on the beach won’t harass you, you'll find it relatively safe, and you won't feel racial tensions.

Aruba stands outside the hurricane path. Its coastline on the leeward side is smooth and serene, with whitesand beaches; but on the eastern coast, the windward Atlantic side, it looks rugged and wild. Dry and sunny almost year-round, Aruba has clean, exhilarating air, like in the desert of Palm Springs, California. Forget lush vegetation here, as Aruba receives only 17 inches of rainfall annually.

Though it is still a Dutch protectorate, Aruba became a nation unto itself in 1986. With more than a dozen resort hotels populating its once-uninhabited beaches, it is now one of the Caribbean's most popular destinations. A recent moratorium on hotel construction, however, has halted the building of newer resorts-- so for now, Aruba remains safe from rampant over-development.

San Juan, Puerto Rico
The capital of Puerto Rico is a spirited modern metropolis with high-rise beach strips, a major commercial center and a justly famous historic colonial core. It dates from the early 16th century, making it the second oldest city in the Americas (after granddaddy Cuzco, Peru).

Today it is the engine of the island's economic and political life and the cultural beachhead for U.S. influence in the Caribbean. For an old timer, San Juan can seem pretty spry - nothing like strips of high-rise hotels and heaps of hardbodies littered about the beaches to make a town look young. Old San Juan is the heart of the city with great shopping and cafés located in and around buildings dating back hundreds of years.

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
This laid-back island paradise is also a shopping Shangri-La - a classic cruise lover's port. Charlotte Amalie was founded by the Danes and was once a haven for merchant, naval and buccaneer ships. Today, waterfront warehouses formerly used by pirates have been transformed into duty-free shops stocked with imported luxuries. And stunning Magen's Bay is rated one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in the world.

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Philipsburg, St. Maarten
For an island with a big reputation for its restaurants, hotels, and energetic nightlife, St. Maarten is small – only 37 square miles, about half the area of Washington, D.C. An island divided between the Netherlands and France, St. Maarten (Sint Maarten) is the Dutch half, while St. Martin is French. Legend has it that a gindrinking Dutchman and a wine-guzzling Frenchman walked around the island to see how much territory each could earmark for his country in a day; the Frenchman outwalked the Dutchman, but the canny Dutchman got the more valuable piece of property.

The divided island is the smallest territory in the world shared by two sovereign states. The only way you'll know you're crossing an international border is when you see the sign BIENVENUE PARTIE FRANÇAISE, attesting to the peaceful coexistence between the two nations. The island was officially split in 1648, and many visitors still ascend Mount Concordia, near the border, where the agreement was reached. Even so, St. Maarten changed hands 16 times before it became permanently Dutch.

The Dutch capital, Philipsburg, curves like a toy village along Great Bay. The town lies on a narrow sand isthmus separating Great Bay and the Great Salt Pond. Commander John Philips, a Scot in Dutch employ, founded the capital in 1763. To protect Great Bay, Fort Amsterdam was built in 1737. Returning visitors who have been "off island" for a while are often surprised and shocked upon arrival in the St. Maarten of today. No longer a sleepy Caribbean backwater, it has expanded like a boomtown in recent years. Many hotels and restaurants sustained serious structural damage from Hurricane Luis in September 1995, but have since reopened with freshly renovated facilities, new and often better menus, and energized staffs. A sense of freshness and rejuvenation now permeates the island.

In fact, you can live far more luxuriously on St. Maarten than you ever could before. Duty-free shopping has turned the island into a virtual mall. The main thoroughfare is busy Front Street, which stretches for about a mile and is lined with stores selling international merchandise, such as French fashions and Swedish crystal. More shops are along the little lanes, known as steegijes, that connect Front Street with Back Street, another shoppers' haven.

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Willemstad, Curacao
Just 35 miles north of the coast of Venezuela, Curaçao, the "C" of the Dutch ABC islands of the Caribbean, is the most populous of the Netherlands Antilles. Visitors are attracted to its distinctive culture, warm people, duty-free shopping, lively casinos, and water sports. Fleets of tankers head out from its harbor to bring refined oil to all parts of the world.

A self-governing part of the Netherlands, Curaçao was spotted not by Columbus, but by two of his lieutenants, Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci, in 1499. The Spaniards exterminated all but 75 members of a branch of the peaceful Arawaks. However, they in turn were ousted by the Dutch in 1634, who also had to fight off French and English invasions.

The Dutch made the island a tropical Holland in miniature. Pieter Stuyvesant, stomping on his peg leg, ruled Curaçao in 1644. The island was turned into a Dutch Gibraltar, bristling with forts. Thick ramparts guarded the harbor's narrow entrance; the hilltop forts (many now converted into restaurants) protected the coastal approaches.

In the 20th century, it remained sleepy until 1915, when the Royal Dutch/Shell Company built one of the world's largest oil refineries to process crude from Venezuela. Workers from some 50 countries poured onto the island, turning Curaçao into a polyglot, cosmopolitan community. The largest of the Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao is 37 miles long and seven miles across at its widest point. Because of all that early Dutch building, Curaçao is the most important island architecturally in the entire West Indies, with more European flavor than anywhere else. Classic Dutch-style windmills are scattered in and around Willemstad, the capital, and in parts of the countryside.

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