Curaçao: Willemstad's Colorful Dutch Colonial Waterfront & the Caribbean's Blue Liqueur

Curaçao is the Dutch island that doesn't look like the others. It sits in the southern Caribbean, just forty miles off the coast of Venezuela, and it is a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, fully self-governing since the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010, but still Dutch in language, in architecture, and in the way it takes its coffee. What sets it apart, the moment you arrive, is the color. The capital, Willemstad, is a waterfront of candy-colored Dutch colonial houses in red, blue, yellow ochre, and green, reflected in the still water of the harbor like a Caribbean Amsterdam.

Willemstad

The color, it turns out, is not decoration but law. The tradition dates to 1817, when the governor forbade the white lime finish that had covered the buildings, apparently because the glare off the white walls was blamed for damaging eyesight. Whatever the real reason, the order stuck, and the historic area of Willemstad, the inner city and harbor, was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1997, recognized as an exceptionally preserved example of a Dutch colonial trading settlement. The harbor, Sint Anna Bay, divides the old quarter of Punda from the newer quarter of Otrobanda, and the two are joined by the Queen Emma Bridge, a swinging pontoon that opens to let ships pass and walks passengers across the water like a moving sidewalk.

The Blue Liqueur

The other thing Curaçao gave the world is a bottle of bright blue liquid. Genuine Curaçao liqueur is made on the island by Senior & Company from the dried peel of the Laraha, a bitter local orange descended from the Valencia oranges the Spanish introduced in the sixteenth century, the only citrus that survived the island's arid climate. The blue color is added, but the orange flavor is real, and a tour of the distillery at Landhuis Chobolobo is the place to learn the difference between the genuine article and the imitation that fills most back-bar bottles.

Getting There

Curaçao International Airport (CUR) is served by direct flights from Miami, New York, Toronto, Amsterdam, and Panama City on American, JetBlue, KLM, and Copa.

Reference Links:

- Curaçao (official tourism): curacao.com

- Historic Area of Willemstad (UNESCO): whc.unesco.org/en/list/819

- Genuine Curaçao Liqueur (Senior & Co): curacaoliqueur.com

- Willemstad (Wikipedia): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willemstad