wonderful willemstad

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looking over to punda from the gouverneur restaurant

a little latin dancing with a local curacaoan at de heeren!

as mentioned before, i did not check much off my to-do list this visit. my first day i spent relaxing at the Hyatt & familiarizing myself with the island.  the Hyatt did an excellent job with greeting guests at the airport & upon arrival to the resort gave you a little blue curacao cocktail – how festive! staff were welcoming throughout the day & made sure that you knew they were there to make your stay all it could be. i, in particular, loved that i could rent a car onsite at the Hyatt to get myself into town. they provided me with directions & all tips i would need to make this transaction seamless (ie – it’s the yellow handled gas you need to put in & stations don’t accept credit cards, you will need local coins for the parking meters in town) driving really wasn’t too difficult on Curacao!

next i made my way into willemstad and enjoyed watching the queen emma pontoon bridge open for the various cargo and tanker boats as well as the beautiful sailboats.  it amazed me how something so simple could be so fascinating! after that, i decided to grab a meal & needed to cross the bridge while it was opening – also a fun treat! i had dinner at the Gouverneur de Rouville – a colonial mansion on the otrobanda waterfront. i had a trio of local fish as well as the banana soup (a local favorite they claim people come all the way from holland to enjoy). i really liked everything about eating at the Gouverneur – especially how all the staff made me feel so welcome.

from here i made my way back to punda & then had a pit-stop at mundo bizarro before going out at de heeren. mundo bizarro has live acoustic music many nights and a really cool vibe AND excellent mojitos i must add. de heeren, located in a historic landhuis, also had live latin music & it truly felt as though i were mixing it up with the locals. their tag line is “the place where you feel at home” – so fun!