Our ship has now docked at Charlotte Amalie, the capital city and port town on the island of St. Thomas in the U. S. Virgin Islands.
Right away, let's dispense with the burning questions on everyone's mind: who was Charlotte Amalie and what makes the islands "Virgin"?
Charlotte Amalie was the Queen Consort of King Christian V of Denmark and Norway. Her name on this capital is a relic of the time when the Virgin Islands were ruled by Denmark. Indeed, most of the historic fortifications on the islands are also relics of Danish rule. The islands passed to the USA by purchase in 1917.
As for the name of the islands, that is a relic of Christopher Columbus who named the archipelago in honour of Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins (in Spanish: Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes). I would hazard a guess that he thought of the name because of the large numbers of tiny little rocks, cays, and the like surrounding the larger islands of the group.
This picture, taken from the ship as we sailed into St. Thomas in the morning, shows a handful of the islands of varying sizes.
Part of the island cluster is controlled by the United States, while another part is ruled by the United Kingdom and usually referred to as the British Virgin Islands. As for St. Ursula, I'll leave it up to you if you want to Google the highly romanticized legends surrounding her.
This picture, taken from the ship as we sailed into St. Thomas in the morning, shows a handful of the islands of varying sizes.
Part of the island cluster is controlled by the United States, while another part is ruled by the United Kingdom and usually referred to as the British Virgin Islands. As for St. Ursula, I'll leave it up to you if you want to Google the highly romanticized legends surrounding her.
Today, St Thomas is a major centre of the Caribbean cruise trade, and indeed the busiest cruise port in the region outside of the U. S. mainland. As a regular routine, during the tourist peak season, the city's population is pretty much doubled, with many of the visitors departing each night to be replaced the next morning by a new influx. Today there were only four ships in port, but three of them were in the 3000-passenger range. Add in the 6000-passenger Symphony of the Seas from Royal Caribbean -- you get the idea.
The first and nuttiest fact about life in the U S. Virgin Islands is the bizarre business of driving on the left side of the road -- in vehicles designed and built for the U.S. market, with their steering wheels on the left side. Yes, that means that you are driving the vehicle from the side closest to the curb. This came about because the islands were already using the left side of the road when the U.S.A. acquired them from Denmark -- which now itself drives on the right side. Try to wrap your brain around that one. Take all the time you need.
Since it was tropically hot and humid, and since my tour didn't begin until 1:00 pm, I simply enjoyed my morning lounging by and in the pool on the top deck, in brilliant sunshine.
After lunch, I headed ashore and joined my tour bus -- the most unusual vehicle I've ever travelled in since riding in "le truck" in Bora Bora almost 4 years ago.
While there are a few air-conditioned mini-buses on the roads, there are no big coaches on this island, and as soon as you hit the roads, you find out why. Charlotte Amalie's downtown by the harbour isn't too bad, but as soon as you start uphill, you start encountering steep grades, hairpin turns, and narrow bits where even two of these truck-bus things passing each other becomes a scary manoeuvre.
The 2-hour tour basically consisted of two scenic highlights, one on each side of the mountain ridge which forms the spine of the island. The first is the world-famous Mountaintop, said to be the birthplace of the banana daiquiri. The parking area was jammed with truck-buses, and the huge souvenir store was full of visitors. You have to walk all the way through the store, past the huge bar which dishes out daiquiris by the dozen, and out the far end to reach the lookout platform with its splendid view of Magen's Bay and the other islands to the east.
Magen's Bay is said to be one of the ten finest beaches in the world, and it's a go-to destination for cruise passengers on a daily basis -- so it was a little surprising to look down from the mountain and see that the beach still appeared relatively uncrowded.
Of the three major islands in this picture, the one farthest to the right is St. John's, the smallest and least populated of the U. S. Virgin Islands, with nearly half of the island being a national park. The other two are Tortola (centre) and Jost van Dyke (left) in the British Virgin Islands.
After oohing and aahing at the gorgeous view, and touring the contents of the store (mostly women's clothes and jewellery), I still had 25 minutes of the 40-minute stop to kill -- my usual problem whenever a tour stops at a store.
The other stop was at a lookout point above Charlotte Amalie, and here it was an easy matter to take a string of 3 pictures comprising the entire panorama from the left (our ship and a Carnival vessel) to the centre (Castle Island and its fortifications) and then to the right (Celebrity cruise ship and the Symphony of the Seas in the distance).
In due course we snaked our way back down to the harbour, and got dropped off on the far end of the huge shopping centre between the road and the dock. By the time I walked through the shopping centre and down the dock to the ship, I was sweating so hard that there was only one thing to do -- make a beeline for the pool again!
We're not sailing until 9:30 tonight because it's a relatively short hop to our next stop at Sint Maarten/St Martin. Indeed, this famous dual-nation island is just the other side of the British Virgins.
A final note on St. Thomas: many tourists seem reluctant to come this way because of the damage wrought on these islands by the hurricanes of 2017, Jose and Maria. Although there were still some broken buildings and roofs in some of the poorer areas of town, there was little sign of visible damage remaining elsewhere.
The first and nuttiest fact about life in the U S. Virgin Islands is the bizarre business of driving on the left side of the road -- in vehicles designed and built for the U.S. market, with their steering wheels on the left side. Yes, that means that you are driving the vehicle from the side closest to the curb. This came about because the islands were already using the left side of the road when the U.S.A. acquired them from Denmark -- which now itself drives on the right side. Try to wrap your brain around that one. Take all the time you need.
Since it was tropically hot and humid, and since my tour didn't begin until 1:00 pm, I simply enjoyed my morning lounging by and in the pool on the top deck, in brilliant sunshine.
After lunch, I headed ashore and joined my tour bus -- the most unusual vehicle I've ever travelled in since riding in "le truck" in Bora Bora almost 4 years ago.
While there are a few air-conditioned mini-buses on the roads, there are no big coaches on this island, and as soon as you hit the roads, you find out why. Charlotte Amalie's downtown by the harbour isn't too bad, but as soon as you start uphill, you start encountering steep grades, hairpin turns, and narrow bits where even two of these truck-bus things passing each other becomes a scary manoeuvre.
The 2-hour tour basically consisted of two scenic highlights, one on each side of the mountain ridge which forms the spine of the island. The first is the world-famous Mountaintop, said to be the birthplace of the banana daiquiri. The parking area was jammed with truck-buses, and the huge souvenir store was full of visitors. You have to walk all the way through the store, past the huge bar which dishes out daiquiris by the dozen, and out the far end to reach the lookout platform with its splendid view of Magen's Bay and the other islands to the east.
Magen's Bay is said to be one of the ten finest beaches in the world, and it's a go-to destination for cruise passengers on a daily basis -- so it was a little surprising to look down from the mountain and see that the beach still appeared relatively uncrowded.
Of the three major islands in this picture, the one farthest to the right is St. John's, the smallest and least populated of the U. S. Virgin Islands, with nearly half of the island being a national park. The other two are Tortola (centre) and Jost van Dyke (left) in the British Virgin Islands.
After oohing and aahing at the gorgeous view, and touring the contents of the store (mostly women's clothes and jewellery), I still had 25 minutes of the 40-minute stop to kill -- my usual problem whenever a tour stops at a store.
The other stop was at a lookout point above Charlotte Amalie, and here it was an easy matter to take a string of 3 pictures comprising the entire panorama from the left (our ship and a Carnival vessel) to the centre (Castle Island and its fortifications) and then to the right (Celebrity cruise ship and the Symphony of the Seas in the distance).
In due course we snaked our way back down to the harbour, and got dropped off on the far end of the huge shopping centre between the road and the dock. By the time I walked through the shopping centre and down the dock to the ship, I was sweating so hard that there was only one thing to do -- make a beeline for the pool again!
We're not sailing until 9:30 tonight because it's a relatively short hop to our next stop at Sint Maarten/St Martin. Indeed, this famous dual-nation island is just the other side of the British Virgins.
A final note on St. Thomas: many tourists seem reluctant to come this way because of the damage wrought on these islands by the hurricanes of 2017, Jose and Maria. Although there were still some broken buildings and roofs in some of the poorer areas of town, there was little sign of visible damage remaining elsewhere.
In this blog post, I share some beautiful pictures of St. Thomas as well as giving the lowdown on the real Charlotte Amalie, the whole business of driving on the left with a left-hand drive, and the real truth about what makes these islands "Virgin."
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