Category Archives: R. Doug Wicker

For a rather unique take on an outdoor produce market, head north along Willemstad’s waterfront and hang a left at Sha Caprileskade. This takes you to the “Floating Market,” most of which doesn’t really float. These vendors sail in from Venezuela, hawking everything from arts and crafts to fresh produce and spices. Want a piece of fresh fruit? I mean really fresh? Here’s where you want to go:

A look back toward Sint Anna Bay will get you a view of a very unique pedestrian draw bridge across the mouth of the Waaigat Lagoon:

From here, well past the Floating Market, we turned south, and then west on the parallel Prinsenstraat, which in turn became another pedestrian street. You just gotta love these charming backstreet businesses:

We turned south again until we hit Hendrikplein, then headed west again. There’re some fun sights along this route, including the impressive Openbaar Ministerie (Public Prosecutor), which I mistook for a church:

And just west of there, where Hendrikplein becomes Wilhelminaplein, are you hungry and hot from all this walking? If so:

Don’t forget to look up. Above Champs you’ll see some fun architecture:

With a street name like Wilhelminaplein, and a space on that street called Wilhelminapark, you would of course expect to see evidence of Queen Wilhelmina:

I’ll leave you today with a last look as we turn onto Breedestraat:

Dushi has many meanings in Curaçao, but when you see it alone, such as in the signage above, it means nice. And nice is indeed a fitting description for the visitor to this wonderfully charming World Heritage Site in Curaçao. Willemstad, the capital city of Curaçao, is a marvelous blend of charming architecture and bright colors that will delight the photographer or casual observer at every turn.

Street art is everywhere here, and by that I am not referring to graffiti for there is little evidence of that anywhere to be found.

Even the local bars and cafés get in on the act:

The main streets are awash in rainbow colors:

But the cafés serving the green space between Breedestraat and Hanchi Snoa interject a little humor as well:

By the way, this green space is a fun, wide pedestrian street with much to see:

Another small but park-like space is located on a back street nearby, but for the life of me I cannot recall exactly where. You’ll know when you see The Gold World near this café:

The green wall to the left of the image above has some fun street art as well, a portion of which I’ll show on this week’s Fun Photo Friday. Wherever it is, my photo time stamp places it about five minutes’ walk from this neat bell-ringing display on Breedestraat:

I’ll leave you today with these images from Willemstadt:

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