COLORFUL CURACAO CHARMS US AGAIN!

COLORFUL CURACAO CHARMS US AGAIN!
Caribbean Princess
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Willemstad, Curacao—Netherlands, Lesser Antilles
85F, sunny!

Curacao, about 37 miles north of Venezuela and part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, greeted us this morning.  We could see a Dutch Navy ship just off our balcony most of the day—it was big enough to have small helicopter aboard. 

This sleek Dutch Navy ship was just off our balcony all day. Later in the 

afternoon a helicopter landed on it

When we disembarked from the ship about 8:30 a.m., most of the shops were not open so we had coffee at McDonald’s in downtown Willemstad. My math says that most of Curacao’s population (151,000) lives in Willemstad (pop.: 137,000).  The economy of Curaçao depends heavily on petroleum refining, using crude oil imported from Venezuela.

McDonald's menu in Curacao

Strong, very strong coffee! 

We walked quite a distance to the main part of town from the port. A unique feature of Willemstad is the floating Queen Emma Bridge that connects the port area across Sint Anna Bay to the main part of the shopping district. When a boat or tug comes by, the bridge swings open and the boat passes through. TK was caught on this bridge a couple years ago—but the time frame is not long. Of course there is a warning bell to signal that the bridge will be moving.

The Queen Emma Bridge is open in this photo, but

how would you know unless I told you--no 

photos of the bridge itself!

It was a sunny day and quite warm. In the early morning the humidity wasn’t too bad, but that changed as the hours passed. We discovered a straw market near the museum, even though this is our 9^th visit to Curacao! What are we shopping for? That is a very good question!

The buildings in Curacao are very colorful and quaint—it is said that in the early 1800s the governor claimed he had migraines from the bright white buildings so he decreed that they be painted any color but white. I don’t know if that is true or not, but the charm of Willemstad is unmistakable.

A colorful street in Curacao

Another Curacao street

Locks of Love--Curacao has the right idea by
placing this "sculpture"near the bridge so people
can place their Locks of Love on this instead of weighing down a bridge

TK found this Dutch bottle of molasses to bring home-

the same brand that the Dutch Pancakehouse used in Aruba

After checking out a couple more shops, including one that sold gouda cheese, we returned to the ship—the humidity got to us. 

Dinner was sour cherry soup, Steak Diane, and apple pie—all very tasty. I wanted to see tonight’s show, “Fantastic Journey,” so I waited in line to get the seats that TK liked. The show was full of glitz and glamor, lots of lights and technology. I only recognized one song (by Lady Gaga), but I sure liked the lighted costumes and the flying lighted drones. The show was worth seeing. It turned out that one of the dancers was injured (the audience did not realize this) and the 2nd show this evening was canceled. There were a lot of disappointed people. We learned at the lecture about the shows onboard a few days ago, that there are no understudies on this ship. If someone is injured or sick, the show does not go on.

 

Sour cherry soup

TK’s Takes: He was disappointed that we could not board the small open-air train that goes through the city—according to one of the local tour vendors you can only buy tickets for the train onboard the cruise ship. That leads me to believe that cruise ships commandeer the train when they are in port.  The city’s information center seems to be gone, too.