Bermuda - The Rest of It

Bermuda is a strange little place.  As I mentioned before, it's right in the East Coast's back yard, but it just seems to be overlooked as a travel destination.  Jamaica, Bahamas, US Virgin Islands all seem to way more discussed as destinations.

Bermuda doesn't have a "thing".  They don't have a special type of art, no special type of jewelry, and no particular style of food -- it's a mish-mash of British, Caribbean, and Spanish.  Bermuda is very expensive, mostly the result of having to import practically everything (80% of all food), including resources too.

It does have fantastic beaches, though, and that's what DB~ was very excited about.  We also went to a cool sets of underground caverns with limestone/calcite stalactites and tidal water pools.  One was called Crystal Cave and the other was Fantasy Cave.  They were discovered by two kids in 1905 after they dropped their cricket ball down a hole and they went into pitch black to try and find it.

After that trip to the Caves, we walked across the street and had lunch at the Swizzle Inn.  This island landmark created the Rum Swizzle (Bermuda's unofficial national cocktail) many moons ago.  It had great bar food and a funky interior best described as "island graffiti".  We wrote our names on the casing of a window out on the porch.  Here's a picture of a swizzle (the orange one) and a drink I got with blue curacao.

The whole island has 66,000 residents.  Most of the business that is not tourist-related happens in the capital city of Hamilton.  We passed through here a lot because the central hub bus terminal is located here.  DB~ was underwhelmed by Hamilton; I was merely "whelmed".  Thanks to some loose regulations on finance, nearly every major world bank has an office in Hamilton -- which leads to every major Big 4 auditing firm having an office.  There are some great restaurants on Front Street that overlook the harbor, which can moor  not the mega-cruise ships, but still some huge cruise ships.

The mega-cruisers go to the Dockyards on the western side of the island.  We went there for lunch one day and ate at a great English pub called The Frog and Onion.  DB~ went with Fish and Chips and I panicked and selected the Ploughman's Lunch.  Little did I realize that being a ploughman meant you threw a bunch of stuff in your lunchpail and made the best of it.  There were grapes, apples, cheeses, meats, spreads, and a random baguette tossed in a bin.  I put it all on the bun at the same time.  It was a like a taste sensation in every bite.

The people of Bermuda were fantastically friendly, due to British civility being highly stressed from childhood up to adulthood.  We never felt unsafe at any point and it is very clean there.  Overall it was a great place to take a 6 day vacation.