There is no denying the stark contrast between Willemstad on Curaçao and Kralendijk on Bonaire, which was made all the more apparent because I combined the two island on a ten-day trip in the Caribbean in February 2016.
Curaçao will receive the same treatment on this blog as Bonaire. I will describe all the activities of this trip one-by-one, and I have to say, my friend and I have again done some awesome activities on this island.
History Curaçao
Let’s start with some history: the story of Curaçao is slightly more complicated than that of Bonaire. Both islands used to be part of the Netherlands Antilles (an autonomous country within the Netherlands) until it was dissolved in 2010. After the dissolution Bonaire (along with Sint Eustatius and Saba) became special municipalities of the Netherlands proper, while Curaçao (and Sint Maarten) followed the example of Aruba and became constituent countries within the Netherlands.
What this means exactly is still too complicated for me to grasp, but the most apparent differences in this regard between Curaçao and Bonaire are the fact that you can pay with the Caribbean Guilder (and US Dollar) on Curaçao and only with the US Dollar on Bonaire, and the unfortunate fact that Curaçao seems to becoming more dangerous according to the locals. We’ve heard numerous stories about muggings and robberies, which reached the point where we were told not to leave anything visible inside the car (everything should be in the trunk) because they would just walk by and smash the windows. We didn’t experience any of this danger, but we heard about it every day.
Willemstad
The first post will be solely about Willemstad, of which the historic city centre has been designated a UNESCO heritage sight.
There are four quarters inside the historic city centre, but I will only cover three in detail. We explored the city on foot in one day, so a car is definitely not needed when exploring the city centre.
Pietermaai
Our hotel BijBlauw was located in Pietermaai, a quirky up-and-coming neighbourhood of Willemstad. This was the start of our self-guided walking tour. The streets in the area are not really finished yet, and some buildings are still under construction, but you can clearly see this will be the next best area of the city.
Not to mention the fact we had dinner in this neighbourhood almost every night, and the restaurants are amazing (almost in par with the ones we tried on Bonaire). My last post about Curaçao will be a Wine & Dine post again, where I’ll cover all the restaurants we visited.
Punda
Right next to Pietermaai is Punda. The proper historic part of town. There are a few sights we walked past here, but nothing was as special as the Queen Emma pontoon bridge.
Here it is. The bridge is floating on the water and every time a boat has to pass it floats open, sometimes it’s pushed open by a boat. If you get seasick it’s best not too linger on the bridge too long.
Let’s not cross the bridge just yet, and linger in Punda a little bit longer. The bridge was my favourite sight, but there were others.
A floating market, which isn’t really floating as such. Boats take in the merchandise, but the goods are sold on land in plain market stalls.
The oldest building in Punda is now home to a postal museum. We weren’t interested to go inside to see stamps, but we did see the building on the outside.
The Handelskade (harbour) is the most famous picture of Willemstad. The Penha building is its main beauty. This colourful building epitomizes the architecture of Willemstad. The architecture of Punda is one of the reasons Willemstad was granted the UNESCO heritage sight rights.
As we had learned in Kralendijk, Bonaire, the historic sights in the Netherlands Antilles are not necessarily worth a visit. The same holds for Fort Amsterdam in Willemstad. We walked in, took some pictures and walked out again.
It was time to finally cross “the swinging old lady” to reach the other side of Willemstad.
Riffort
When we reached the other side we were terrible disappointed, at first… The first thing we came eye-to-eye with was a huge cruise ship which was docked at a cute looking area, and that’s how we were lured into Riffort.
Riffort is nothing more than a fake little town with a Starbucks, so don’t fall for it and skip this part of town. If you arrive in Curaçao by cruise ship, don’t linger in this area for too long.
Otrabanda
We rushed out of the fake Willemstad as fast as we could and we were ready to explore “the other side” properly. At first, we walked along the main street. This didn’t offer us the sights we were expecting.
When we started wandering into side alleys, we ended up in the cutest neighbourhood I’ve seen on my travels. All the houses here are so colourful! I thought it couldn’t get any better than Heybeliada, Turkey.
Well, it did. This area has colours everywhere! There are colourful bottles hanging from the trees:
Even the trees are painted!
Beautiful!
I could’ve spent hours photographing this neighbourhood, but it was time to visit a museum (the only museum we visited during this ten-day trip).
Kurá Hulanda
Museum Kurá Hulanda is an anthropological museum that focuses on the predominant cultures of Curaçao. It offers a world-class chronicle of the history of African slave trade.
The museum has a beautiful lay-out in an old manor, including some outside areas.
All the beautiful flowers in the world can’t hide the horrible history inside the buildings. The museum has made excellent use of quotes, pictures, and statues to show the different facets of slave trade.
There’s no denying the feeling you get when you walk from room to room, reading the stories, knowing that some events have only happened a few years ago. Not to mention, the ones that are still ongoing…
I seem to be ending this post in a bit of a depressing note, but it’s a part of the history of Curacao and it shouldn’t be missed.
Conclusion
All-in-all Willemstad is a nice city, but not one I would like to explore for more than one day. However, don’t miss strolling around the Emma bridge at night, to see the colourful lights and to see the Handelskade lit up.
The beauty of the island is hidden in the east and particularly the west of the island, which isn’t as inhabited as Willemstad. I’ll tell you all about the explorations of the island in a future post, but first I’ll describe our trip to Klein Curaçao.
