Nassau Culture and Arts: National Art Gallery, Versailles Gardens, Junkanoo Craft, Bay Street Shopping, and Bahamas Golf
The cultural life of Nassau includes the National Art Gallery in the colonial Villa Doyle, the Hearst-transported Versailles Gardens on Paradise Island, the recognized craft art of the Junkanoo costume tradition, the duty-free Bay Street shopping, and the championship golf courses of the Baha Mar and Ocean Club.
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Nassau Arts: The National Art Gallery
The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas in the 1860s colonial mansion of Villa Doyle on West Hill Street is the primary institution of Bahamian visual art, with a permanent collection of works by Bahamian artists from the colonial period to the contemporary generation and temporary exhibitions connecting the island art tradition to the wider Caribbean and international contexts.
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Versailles Gardens: Paradise Island History
The Versailles Gardens of Paradise Island, the French formal gardens and medieval stone cloister transported stone by stone from France by the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and reassembled on the island, are the historical curiosity that preceded the Atlantis resort development and represent the aspirational European culture transplanted to the Caribbean tropics that characterized the early 20th-century American wealthy in the Bahamas.
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Rawson Square and the Changing of the Guard
Rawson Square in the Nassau Bay Street commercial center, the civic heart of the Bahamian capital with the Churchill Building housing the Parliamentary offices and the Supreme Court building providing the colonial governance architecture, is the setting for the alternating Saturday changing of the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band ceremony that continues the British colonial military tradition in the tropical island capital.
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Nassau Shopping: Duty-Free and Bay Street
The Bay Street duty-free shopping of Nassau, one of the most developed in the Caribbean, offers the full range of watches, jewelry, perfume, and liquor at prices that reflect the Bahamas tax-free status as a shopping destination for both cruise ship passengers and the private yacht and charter aircraft visitors who constitute a significant segment of the Bahamas upscale tourism market.
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Bahamian Art: Junkanoo Craft Tradition
The Junkanoo costume-making tradition, in which the Nassau craft community spends months creating the elaborate shredded crepe paper costumes worn in the Boxing Day and New Year parades, has developed into a recognized craft art form with the finest costume sections displayed as permanent installations in the Junkanoo Museum and sold as collector pieces by the artists who develop the annual costume themes.
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Golf in the Bahamas: Ocean Club and Baha Mar
The Bahamas has developed a significant golf tourism offering centered on the Ocean Club Golf Course and the Royal Blue Golf Course at Baha Mar, both designed by Tom Weiskopf, providing the championship golf experience in the island setting that supplements the beach and casino tourism of the Nassau resort area for the American and Canadian golf tourist market.