St. Lucia: a Day Trip

As we pulled into the bay of the capital city Castries(population: 20,000), we could see a cityscape with nice looking hillside houses and some modern structures. I’ve noticed that the countries with population of over 100,000 people seemed to have a definite urban center, and this certainly was the case: St. Lucia has 190,000 people. The shopping area was rather cozy at the cruise terminal, and it did not pretend that there was free WiFi. The tourist information office had free maps. We declined offers of $25 tour around the island and went into town on our own.

Coming out of the terminal, we turned left toward the water and got the ticket for the ferry($5 r/t) that took 5 minutes to deposit us at the other dock in the city. A smaller cruise ship was docked at this pier. You had to go through an indoor air-conditioned shopping center to exit to the city. We turned left then right a few blocks later, and that was the center of the town where the city hall and the parliament building were located.

The Cathedral was a nice surprise: it was good sized and the interior was beautifully decorated with local design.

The day had started with a rain shower, and the rain kept coming back every time we thought it had finally stopped. We ran into the park across from the Cathedral and ducked under the gazebo to escape the rain when we came out of the church. There, local people were busy looking at the screen of their cell phones.

Oh? Can it be true? And, yes! Free working WiFi. Thanks to the Taiwanese government, the whole city was covered by this service – not always well, but we appreciated that it was there!

This park was named after a poet, Derek Walcott, a Nobel Literature Prize winner. Who knew there is a Nobel winner in a little place like this one! Turned out, another person from St. Lucia won a Nobel Prize: Dr. William Arthur Lewis in economics.

We walked back toward the direction of the water and came to the Central Market. It was good sized with stalls selling fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, clothing, and crafts.

Coming out from here, we turned left and walked 10 or so minutes to reach King’s Park. It was not a big park but had a bit of beautiful flowers and plants.

Heading back, we noticed the market actually spilled over to this area, and it was actually located right next to the fancy air-conditioned shopping center that we had to pass through earlier.

Through out this exploration, we did not see a single reference to St. Lucia, Italy. The streets were decorated with blue and yellow triangle flags in celebration of 40 years of independence from the British rule.

Before getting back on the ferry, I decided to take advantage of the free WiFi and do some search. The signal was not very reliable by the dockside, but I was able to find out that the name St. Lucia came from St. Lucy of Syracuse. Nothing to do with Italy.

We could have gone outside the city to see more natural beauty, but it was the 10th port we were visiting during this trip, and what one can see on an island seemed pretty much the same every where.