I took a million different shots of this same scene...over and over...this was the view from my balcony at the Hilton, in Bridgetown, Barbados. Not too shabby, huh? I'd wake up in the morning and sit on the balcony and smoke a cig (which was strictly prohibited but they don't call me the Rebel Chick for nothin'!) and snap photo after photo with my iphone4, using the camera, instagram and hipstamatic to change the colors, soften the edges, etc. The scene was beautiful enough as it was, but with these different filters, it became a postcard-worthy scene!
It was incredibly easy to get around in Barbados. There were taxi cabs everywhere - they are so focused on their tourism! $20 usd will get you practically anywhere in Barbados. The most we paid for a cab (for two people) was $25 usd from our hotel to the airport. There were a few things we were able to simply walk to, but for the most part, the attractions are spread out around town.
On Friday, I walked over to the George Washington House museum, which was located in the historical Garrison area - it happened to be about a five minute walk from the Hilton.
Unfortunately, the museum was closed for lunch when I went...and honestly, it was too hot to sit around and wait for it to reopen. I walked around a bit and snapped a few photos of the grounds, but wasn't able to get inside the museum to take a look!
Oddly enough, we were actually situated right on top of one of the most historical sites in Barbados. The Hilton was built on the old Charles Fort, and still had the cannons and lookout point from all those years ago...Right next door to the hotel was the Barbados Military Cemetery, which was beautiful! I took a short tour through the grounds and learned a little bit about the British military presence in Barbados - I am a total history geek and being on the old fort grounds and touring the cemetery was the highlight of my trip!
A funny story about my little tour was that as I was walking out of the military cemetery, a man said to me, "My condolences, miss. Was it your husband? Your father?" and I had one of those, "uhhhh" moments, as I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he pointed to the cemetery and it hit me, he thought I was paying my respects. It didn't help that I was wearing a black sunhat. How nice is that? Everyone was SO nice in Barbados. I wish the locals in Miami were so kind.
The overlook with the cannons was breathtaking. I kept going back to snap more photos, look out over the ocean...it was also a very romantic spot at night, as it's slightly removed from the hotel and completely lit by moonlight. There was a wedding at the spot on Saturday night so we just took a quick stroll and weren't able to spend much time there.
There were a few other things to do around the island, but unfortunately, most of them were closed on weekends because it was off-season. We thought about attending the horse races on Saturday, but it was SO hot and we'd just returned from spending the morning at The Crane Beach, and decided to hang out on the beach instead.
If I go back, I'll definitely plan on touring the breweries there - they have a Banks Beer brewery, which is the national beer of Barbados, and the Mount Gay Rum factory - I've heard that both are incredible. It was such a shame that I didn't find out about them until Friday afternoon, after they had closed for the weekend!
Now, these are most of the things to do in Barbados that aren't water-sport related or involving spending a day on the beach...Barbados is full of beaches - practically no matter where you are, you can see the ocean, smell the salt water and hear the waves crashing against the shore. It truly was a tropical paradise.
Barbados is home to one of the top ten beaches in the world, The Crane. We trekked the 25 minutes there - with the island only being 21 miles by 14 miles wide, it was the longest cab ride we took the entire weekend. The Crane did not disappoint!
But that, dear readers, deserves it's own post!
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