Willemstad in a nutshell

A visit to the Curaçao Sea Aquarium provides another unique experience. It provides a fascinating look at both the friendly and dangerous inhabitants of the deep. If you've ever wanted to swim with dolphins, now's your chance! Guided tours and feeding shows are given every day.
Bapor Kibra z/n, Curaçao

• Curaçao Sea Aquarium

The Curaçao Museum is accommodated in a former military hospital. This historic museum has an impressive collection of old street lanterns, statues and ship cannons and takes you back to life on Curaçao in the 19th century. Be sure not to miss the three period rooms filled with Curaçaoan furniture and paintings made by local and Dutch painters, and an exhibition dedicated to the original islanders, the Coquetillo Indians. The museum also provides guided tours.
Van Leeuwenhoekstraat z/n, Willemstad

• Het Curaçaosch Museum

Here's a site reminding us that Willemstad wasn’t always without a threat: Fort Amsterdam. This fortification dates from 1635 and is located on the outermost tip of the spit at the mouth of St. Anna Bay. Its purpose was to defend the natural harbor known as the Schottegat. This relic also served as the headquarters for the director of the West Indies Company (and local administrator). Even today, it accommodates the government of the Netherlands Antilles. Although there are more forts on the island, Fort Amsterdam is the best known. Here’s a site reminding us that Willemstad wasn’t always without a threat: Fort Amsterdam. This fortification dates from 1635 and is located on the outermost tip of the spit at the mouth of St. Anna Bay. Its purpose was to defend the natural harbor known as the Schottegat. This relic also served as the headquarters for the director of the West Indies Company (and local administrator). Even today, it accommodates the government of the Netherlands Antilles. Although there are more forts on the island, Fort Amsterdam is the best known.

Not all the contributions made by the Dutch to the history of Curaçao were positive. Kurá Hulanda, a luxurious resort located in the middle of Willemstad, is the result of one of these not-so-positive contributions. This was the site that played a crucial role in the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries when Curaçao served as a stopover island for slaves shipped from West Africa to recuperate for the next leg of their journey. What now remains are magnificently restored colonial houses with 80 hotel rooms plus an anthropological museum dedicated to that tragic period.

• Curaçao Kura Hulanda

The Muntenmuseum exhibits precious collections of coins and paper currency. Also included in the various display cases are more than five hundred precious stones.

'The swinging old lady' – this is the nickname of the world’s only floating wooden swing bridge. The official name for this historic bridge that was built in 1888 is the Koningin Emmabrug (Queen Emma Bridge) but it is also known by locals as the pontoon bridge. This beautiful old bridge, 551 feet in length and no longer used for car traffic, bobs in the waves of St. Anna Bay and connects Punda with Otrobanda. In May of 2006, after a thorough renovation, 'the lady' entered her second life and is once again the swinging focal point of the annual carnival parade.

The Spaniards discovered the leeward island of Curaçao in 1499. Because the day on which they landed was St. Anna's Day, they named the deep bay on the southern coast of Curaçao Bahia de Santa Ana (St. Anna Bay). The waterway makes an amazingly beautiful division between areas within the old city center of Willemstad: Punda (meaning 'the point') and Otrobanda ('the other side').