Willemstad: UNESCO Colonial Architecture, Blue Curacao Liqueur, the Americas Oldest Synagogue, and World-Class Shore Diving
Willemstad, the UNESCO-listed capital of Curacao, combines the most photographed colonial waterfront in the Caribbean with the source of the globally famous blue curacao liqueur, the oldest continuously functioning synagogue in the Americas, and a shore diving reef system accessible without a boat.
- 1
Punda and Otrobanda: The Floating Pontoon Bridge
Willemstad, the capital of Curacao and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is divided by the St. Anna Bay channel into the Punda district on the east and the Otrobanda district on the west, connected by the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge, the floating pedestrian bridge that swings open to allow ships to pass into the Schottegat inner harbor. The Handelskade waterfront of Punda, with its row of Dutch colonial stepped-gable warehouses painted in Caribbean colors, is the most photographed colonial streetscape in the Caribbean.
- 2
Dutch Colonial Architecture: The Caribbean Netherlands
The Willemstad colonial architecture, which reproduces the Dutch Golden Age canal house style in a tropical Caribbean palette of ochre, turquoise, rose, and terracotta, was required by a legend that the first governor of the island banned white house facades because the glare gave him headaches, resulting in the distinctive polychrome colonial city that makes Willemstad unique in the Caribbean and in the Netherlands kingdom.
- 3
Curacao Liqueur: The Blue Concoction
Curacao Liqueur, made from the dried peel of the laraha orange that grows on Curacao in a variation of the bitter orange brought by the Spanish from Valencia, is the source of the blue curacao that has become the most recognizable cocktail ingredient in the world. The Senior Curacao Liqueur distillery at the Landhuis Chobolobo, a 17th century plantation house, produces the authentic Curacao liqueur in multiple colors for the international cocktail market.
- 4
Klein Curacao: The Uninhabited Island
Klein Curacao, the small uninhabited island southeast of Curacao accessible by catamaran day excursion, has one of the finest beaches in the Dutch Caribbean in an environment of lighthouse ruins and shipwrecks that create the authentic deserted island experience. The hawksbill turtle nesting on the Klein Curacao beaches and the snorkeling over the shipwrecks provide the marine wildlife and adventure dimension of the day excursion.
- 5
Jewish Heritage: The Oldest Synagogue in the Americas
The Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue in Punda, established in 1732 on the foundation of the 1651 original congregation of Sephardic Jewish merchants who arrived from Brazil after the Portuguese reconquest, is the oldest continuously functioning synagogue in the Americas. The synagogue interior with its sand-covered floor, the tradition shared with Amsterdam and representing the desert wandering, and the beautiful chandeliers is the finest Jewish heritage site in the Caribbean.
- 6
Curacao Diving: The Coral Wall Fringe
Curacao is one of the finest shore diving destinations in the Caribbean, with the protected leeward coast providing more than 60 marked dive sites accessible directly from the beach without boat transport, where the coral wall drops from the shallow reef to depths of hundreds of meters in a continuous coral encrustation of extraordinary biodiversity. The Mushroom Forest, the Blue Room cave, and the Superior Producer wreck are the most iconic sites.