Tags: Caribbean Vacation Curacao Curacao Liqueur Flying Standby Hato Caves Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge Shete Boka Park Willemstad

The main question people asked me when I told them I was going to Curacao was Where is that?  Now I must admit before I started traveling I had heard of Curacao but didn’t know where it was.  Actually, before we headed there I knew it was in the Carribean but I could not have pinpointed exactly where it is on a map.  

So where is Curacao?  Curacao is one of the Leeward Antilles in the South Caribbean.  It is 40 miles north of the coast of Venezuela.  It’s also about a two and a half hour plane ride from Miami, Florida. Basically, a hop, skip and a jump from the states.  It was a part of the Dutch Antilles, though it is no longer owned by the Netherlands they still speak Dutch on the island along with English, Spanish, and Papiamento.  Papiamento is the local language of the ABC islands.  Curacao is the “C” in the ABC Islands.  The “A” is Aruba and the “B” is Bonaire.    If you go to any of the three islands they use both the Netherlands Antillean Guilder and US Dollars.  We found most places took dollars in addition to Guilders.  We also found that credit cards were accepted every where we went except for one restaurant.  There are a lot of cruise ships that stop here it is definitely a cruise port.  We flew American Airlines in but I know that Jet Blue flies in also.  In addition, you can fly Insel Air between the islands (which we did though it was not our first choice, more about our exit strategy in a later post).   

We arrived on Monday afternoon and flew out on Saturday.  We spent our days in one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  I didn’t say this (though I agree with the statement) but Passport Magazine did if you click on the link you can see all twenty-five beautiful beaches.

Here is a photo of the beach when we pulled into the parking lot.  I will have a post about the beaches we visited when we were there.

Grote Knip Beach, Curacao

We also went to Hato Caves.  The caves are about 200,000 years old.  We were not allowed to take photos inside except in one location of the caves. 

Hato Caves, Curacao

We also went to Shete Boka Park.  Watching the waves here crash against the shore was amazing.  There was even a small boat out in the water.  I know I would have been seasick had I been on the boat.  I could have watched the waves for hours. 

We also took a trip to the Curacao plant where they make the Liqueur Curacao.  The tour was free and you even got to taste the liqueur.

Bon Bini The Liqueur Factory Curacao of Curacao

Finally, we spent a lot of time in Willemstad which is the main town.  They have an amazing pontoon bridge that swings open (just remember to get off because you could get stuck on it forever, like we did).

Queen Emma Bridge, Curacao

Willemstad, Curacao

I will post more details about these locations and the thing we did while we were there including where we stayed, where we ate and what we saw.  If you have any questions please ask them in the comments.  

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