"Early settlers brought with them all their traditions, including their architecture and their notion of what made a proper homes to Curacao.”
160,000 residents from 55 different cultures call this largest Netherlands Antilles island home. Just 35 miles off the Venezuelan coast, Curaçao is the uniquely Dutch Caribbean getaway. You'll see the island's heritage on display in the beautiful Crayola-colored gabled architecture of the capital, Willemstad - a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Willemstad is the centerpiece of this diverse and lovely island - it's what sets Curaçao apart from other Caribbean destinations. It's a true "walking city," revealing itself at every turn, crowding along both sides of the entrance to the harbor, joined together by a unique floating bridge that swings aside to let ships in. Punda, the eastern section and the oldest part of Willemstad, is home to Fort Amsterdam with its 17th Century Governors' Palace; it still guards the entrance to Santa Anna Bay, the largest harbor in the Caribbean, and serves today as seat of government for the Netherlands Antilles. A centuries-old Protestant church inside still has a cannonball embedded in the wall (souvenir of a failed British invasion in the 1700's).
Anchoring the famous Handelskade ["Merchants' Street"] skyline is the 1708 Penha Building with its curlicued gables and arched galleries. Also not to be missed is the elegant 18th Century Mikvé Israel-Emanuel Synagogue -- the oldest in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere, whose Congregation recently celebrated its 350th anniversary. Walking from Punda to Otrobanda ("other side" in the local language, Papiamentu) takes you to the island's newest cultural addition, the African heritage museum Kurá Hulanda. Showcasing authentic African exhibits dating from 500 B.C., it has been called the finest in the Americas; exhibits trace Curaçaoans' African roots, and the legacy of the slave trade in the region.
Shoppers love Willemstad's shady pedestrian malls, and upscale boutiques that offer a range of luxury goods at attractive prices. Local talent is on display in galleries where colorful paintings, sculpture, and specially designed T-shirts are for sale.
Dining in Curaçao ranks with the best in the world for quality and variety - to say nothing of dramatic restaurant settings from abandoned forts to former town mansions, from the Old Market downtown to a breezy beach. Cuisines from over a dozen countries range from classic to exotic, while local dishes blend Creole, Chinese, French, African, South American, Dutch, Indian and Indonesian influences. After dinner, elegant casinos offer games of chance from slots to roulette. And while discos are numerous and popular, many nightclubs feature live music: reggae, contemporary pop, salsa, meringue and the local beat, tumba.
Explorers farther afield find an island with unique features and attractions. At Den Paradera, an organic herb garden teems with plants traditionally used to cure ailments... and sells remedies for matters of the heart, including love potions, or of the head, like elixirs for baldness.
At Curacao's Ostrich & Game Farm visitors can observe the fascinating behavior of this unique bird, and see first-hand how an ostrich develops from an egg to the biggest and fastest bird in the world. Lucky visitors even get to see one hatch. There's no shortage of exotic targets for bird-watchers, while those fascinated by creatures of the deep can spend an absorbing day at Curacao's Sea Aquarium, reckoned the finest in the region.
Curaçao is famous for the liqueur bearing its name - distilled and distributed from a 17th Century landhouse -- but there's much more: plantation landhouses put to intriguing uses, mysterious underground caves to explore, a big national park called Christoffel where orchids grow on cacti and tiny white-tailed deer may be spotted. Across the hilly, semi-arid landscape are explosions of green, and the vivid yellow of flowering kibrahachi trees.
Sun worshipers enjoy Curacao's many beautiful and diverse white sand beaches, tiny and private to enormous sweeps of sand. Golfers shouldn't miss playing at Blue Bay, the island's challenging new 18-hole golf course which takes advantage of seaside terrain and Caribbean vistas.
But Curacao's most amazing secrets lie beneath the water. The island was formed from volcanic limestone on which coral had been growing for centuries -- and still is -- making the surrounding reefs a diver's paradise. Divers and snorkelers will be amazed at the variety of underwater life and easily accessible dive sites - the Mushroom Forest is one of the Caribbean's Top 10. Over 65 remarkable sites have visibility up to 150 feet, and the shore diving is among the region's best. The non-certified can swim with stingrays and feed sharks by hand in a totally protected environment, in the Sea Aquarium's "Animal Encounters".
Curaçao offers many choices of places to stay, at many price levels: luxury resorts operated by international chains, one-of-a-kind boutique hotels, fully equipped vacation apartments and convenient, affordable properties. Roads are excellent and public transportation reliable; a hospitable, multilingual population makes visitors feel welcomed.