Another cruise ship came into Willemstad so we decided to explore on foot and rent a car for tomorrow. We headed back to Fisherman’s harbor, tied off the dinghy, hopped on the bus, and arrived in Punda around 10am. Our goal was to explore Otrobanda and Pietermaai since we did not get a chance to see these areas yesterday. We headed to the Pietermaai district which is considered the “SoHo” of Curacao. It has a lively environment and rich history with small shops, bars, restaurants, hotels and pretty architecture that creates a lively and cozy neighborhood.
Map of Pietermaai district that would have been helpful to have on our walk – we did not do this entire path, but made up our own.
Cool art mural found on our Peitermaai walk.
These houses are used in all Pietermaai marketing.
Local architecture
Local architecture
Local architecture
Little. rustic cafe hidden on a small street with a covered patio.
Love this bench! If we lived in our house, this would be on our deck.
Matt enjoying an ocean breeze after our long, hot walk.
Art sculpture as we were leaving Pietermaai.
Although we did not walk around the entire district, we had worked up a sweat and decided to eat at Plein Café Wilhelmina which looked like a fun, lively little place with wifi and a cool breeze. We ordered a couple of panini’s, some beer, and a typical drink from Curacao.
Curacao drink that looks like the ocean waters.
Now that we were rested, fed, and cooled off a bit, we headed to Otrobanda. I heard that there was a walking tour and several streets with cool architecture but we just could not find it. We walked and walked and walked and found ourselves in areas that were not very photo worthy. Bit of a disappointment but it could easily have been the fact that we did not have a map and might not have been in the right area of Otrobanda. Before we left town, we did snap a silly photo with some pretty art.
We hopped back on 6A back to Caracasbaai and decided to take the bus to the end which was only 3 bus stops passed ours. At the end of the route are two high-end beach clubs – the Jan Thiel Beach Club with 4 bars/restaurants and Papagayo Beach Club which is a trendy, upscale resort. We had heard that the beaches on this side were man-made, but they were still very beautiful. There are also car rentals, boutique shops, and a nice supermarket, Van Der Tweel (it was a lot smaller than the one we found in Bonaire, but equally as nice). We walked the entire shoreline and scoped out our favorite fancy bar, Zanzibar which offered beer for $7 (we normally pay $2-3), a pretty view, gorgeous beach, and super beautiful atmosphere.
Papagayo Beach Resort.
Papagayo Beach Resort
Zanzibar Beach Resort.