Last Spring – a lifetime ago – my husband and I went on a get-a-way cruise. At the time, my dear mother was ill and I thought she would improve with rehab. She didn’t. Most of the past year has been filled with bittersweet, challenging trips to see her. As I begin to refocus on the many suspended details in my life, I realized I wrote content, selected photos, and never posted details of that trip. Better late than never, here we go . . . .

Formerly known as the Netherlands Antilles – Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire are now loosely independent from one another, although still showing off their shared Dutch culture and heritage. After Aruba declared her independence, Curaçao followed, leaving Bonaire and her sisters of Sabo and St Eustatius under Dutch rule. St. Marteen rounds out the archipelago.

In pictures, Curaçao is colorful and thriving. Up close and personal it shares many of the qualities found throughout the Caribbean – crumbling structures, rough roads, litter, and roaming donkeys.

It was, however, an enjoyable island to visit and we were well-informed by our knowledgeable tour guide during our open-air island adventure. Initially, I was disappointed the historic walking tour of Willemstad I planned was not available during our Sunday visit. I also knew most of the shops would be closed (that is not necessarily a bad thing as far as I’m concerned, it keeps the crowds down).

Thankfully, we hopped out of our colorful bus and were able to walk through an area featuring some of the many vibrant murals and street art that have been added to the neighborhood in recent years. We managed to get around to the key sections of town, including, Otrobanda, Punda, and Scharloo. Scharloo was once the location of the thriving Jewish community on the island, and while today structures house museums and government buildings, the town of Willemstad is still home to the oldest continuously used Jewish synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1651.

The old district of Punda was very interesting. That is what you see when you look across St. Anne’s Bay from Otrobanda where the cruise port is located. It contains what is probably the most iconic visual of Curaçao, a colorful row of attached, colonial Dutch merchant homes along Handelskade facing the bay. That is the only spot we saw that type of building.  It didn’t take Dutch settlers long to realize that in a humid, salty, breezy Caribbean setting, air surrounding buildings is a good thing and homes and buildings were then built freestanding.

It was nice to spot some wild flamingos as we drove around, interesting to learn (and sample) how the drink Blue Curaçao is made, and hard to resist a stop at charming Kokomo Beach, even if it was named in honor of the hit Beach Boys song.

The Dutch were very late to publicly acknowledge the role they played in the slave trade and Curaçao was a significant cog in that dark part of their history. Today a waterfront park and monuments pay homage to their history and the role of the slaves who began the fight for independence in 1863.

We rounded out our Curaçao experience by taking advantage of our late stay in port with a food-hopping tour. Booked from the ship, and in partnership with Food & Wine Magazine, it made for a fun, special night in town. A group of 19 of us began with appetizers at the Gouverneur de Rouville restaurant in Otrobanda where the banana soup was a new taste for me (and a new fav). We then crossed the “new” Queen Wilhelmina Bridge (they name bridges here after Dutch queens) for the second time to visit Tabooshh an open-air restaurant along the bay in the Spanish Waters area. After a special welcome (Bon Bini) cocktail made with Curaçao liquor, we enjoyed our choice of entrees. I tried a Dutch classic called Stuffed Gouda Cheese which was made with chicken, vegetables, and spices and was very good, while my husband had a very nice piece of swordfish. Swordfish is not a local fish, turns out it really wasn’t the season for local catches. The owner of the restaurant was the designer of the Curaçaoan flag adopted in 1984, even before the territory became an autonomous state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 2010.   

We ended the evening back on the “other side” (which is what Otrobanda means) for dessert at O’Porto, on a lovely patio set against the walls of the historic fort. 

A bonus was seeing the pedestrian-only Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge that connects Otrobanda and Punda, known as the “Swinging Old Lady”, completely open and lit up in multicolors.

Afterthought: I had to make sure this was true . . . the buildings of Curaçao used to be all white. The governor in 1817 decreed the bright white buildings were giving him a headache and they needed to be painted – any color at all, as long as it was a color. And so, they were; giving us the iconic images everyone loves today. Fact was, the Governor owned the paint store.

Some things never change . . . .