Curacao

Our fifth day our port was the island of Curacao.  All three of the islands that we visited are owned by the Dutch.  Curacao was the most beautiful of the 3. Willemstad was the city where we docked.  We were greeted with bright colorful buildings, very different from anything we had seen thus far. They reminded me of something you might see in an illustration from a child's story book.

Getting to into town was only a short walk but necessitated crossing over the floating bridge seen in the picture above.  This bridge swivels 90 degrees to one side to allow for the passage of boats and ships.  If the bridge is not accessible then you have to take a ferry.  It did open before we crossed but only for a very short time.  On the way back we ended up having to take a ferry crossing. The downtown was full of shops.  We did do some shopping but didn't buy much.  In the afternoon we took a private taxi tour of some of the local sights. 

Our tour first took us across the bridge seen above.  

From there we visited a fort that is now doing time as a restaurant. Once up on top of the fort we had a birds eye view of the refineries.  Oil is shipped from Venezuela and refined there.  Harry of course found this most interesting.

Following that we made a quick stop at the Curacao liquor factory and then took a look at the residence and offices of the governor.

When we departed the port we were pleasantly surprised that the downtown area which had been so charming by day was even more beautiful by night. The lights made the buildings look like little cardboard stand ups in a diorama.

It was a real treat to watch it fade into the distance.