St Vincent & the Grenadines, Caribbean

In January 2022 I went on a Caribbean cruise. We went to the eastern Caribbean and many of the ports we visited were new to me. We flew to Barbados to join the ship. On they way from the airport to the port, I managed to get a photo of the empty plinth that used to hold the statue of Nelson. On 30 November 2021 Barbados became a republic, which meant the British Queen was no longer head of state and it was no longer a British colony. However a year earlier, the statue of Lord Nelson was removed from National Heroes Square as he was not a local hero. The statue was moved to the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. See my blog on the statue.

The first island we stopped at was St Vincent. This is the main island of the country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The islands were under British colonial status until gaining independence in 1979.

The island is volcanic and very hilly and heavily forested. The capital is Kingstown, which is the main port.

Kingstown from the ship -

Blue sea at the port -

Due to Covid restrictions we were only allowed to get off using a ship's tour. And the one I chose was rather disappointing as we didn't see a great deal of the island. We drove through the town. The Assumption Catholic cathedral with its striking architecture which is a combination of styles (Moorish, Romanesque, Byzantine, Venetian and Flemish) and the police station -

Our first stop was up at Fort Charlotte. There were good views but not much to see of the fort.

Looking at the Grenadines (and rain cloud). Some of the better known Grenadines are Bequia, Mustique and Young Island. Bequia is the big island in the foreground -

We then went to the botanic gardens. These are located above Kingstown and are the oldest botanic garden in the Western Hemisphere, established 1765. A third-generation clone of a breadfruit tree came from an original plant brought from Tahiti in 1793 by Captain William Bligh (of Bounty fame). The Botanic Garden's Scottish curator Alexander Anderson took great care of these plants. Breadfruit is one of the most useful food plant in the West Indies. The gardens are a popular venue for weddings. Mahogany tree -

Pride of Barbados -

Cannonball tree

Some of the parrots called out hello as we were there. It was impossible to get a good photo of them through the netting. 

From here we drove to a beach place for a rum punch. We managed to see a small part of the hilly island. We went past the old airport at Arnos Vale which is now used as a road, and saw the new airport which is further out of town. 

Flag St Vincent and Grenadines