Bahama Mama

A couple of weekends ago, I decided leave the bubba and the pregnant wife behind and escape the island for a night in Nassau, the Bahamas.

Leaving Cayman on the Friday evening BA flight, I touched down on New Providence around 9pm local time, and after a quick transit through the airport and a short and sedate, but somehow still unnerving taxi ride into downtown Nassau to arrive at the British Colonial Hilton, where he was staying for the night. The British Colonial Hilton is well located, but hints a little of past glories - somehow it feels as if the days of Thunderball are well and truly over, having relinquished the tile of being the Bahamas' best hotel to Atlantis and the Ocean Club just across the harbour on Paradise Island. Even so, it was a perfectly acceptable place to spend the night...

Still, it was getting late, and I was getting peckish, so having settled in to the hotel I headed out to find something to eat. I took the recommendation of the converge and went round the corner to a great little place called Conch and Kalik - Conch being a Bahamian delicacy, and Kalik being one of the local beers. The Kalik was very refreshing, and the Conch, well, it turns out there is more than one way to have Conch. As well as the ubiquitous cracked conch, they had grilled conch, stewed conch, conch ceviche, conch salad - the options were endless. I settled on a Bahamian style Conch stew, which was tasty and spicy, One thing that surprised me was that even thought it was nearly 11pm by that point, no-one seemed to be about. Evidently Bahamians don't go out to party until late late...

The next morning I got up early and headed out to explore Nassau before all of the tourists arrived. After a sunrise stroll along the waterfront, the first stop on my itinerary was Fort Charlotte, an artillery fort built by the British in the late 1700s to protect the approach to the harbour. As well as providing a great vantage point over the town and across the island, it also provided a fantastic background into the history of Nassau, which used to be a pirate's hangout until Cromwell started trying to civilise the Commonwealth.

Having had enough of playing soldiers in the fort, I decided it was time to head back into town and see what else Nassau had to offer. After exploring some of the back streets, which housed gems such as the Graycliffe hotel, I came across the Bahamas Art Museum, in an Italianate palazzo which was once one of Nassau's grandest homes. The gallery was very well put tougher and had some fantastic paintings from local Bahamian artists.

After the Art Museum, I followed the attendant's suggestion and headed round the corner to the John Watling's Distillery. This is an old plantation house (which was incidentally used as a location for a number of Bond films including Thunderball and Casino Royale), which has been converted into a distillery to produce a boutique rum. The building itself was fantastic, but the treat waiting at the end of the tour was even better, as I was presented with a planters punch to enjoy in the grounds.

By this time I was getting pretty hungry, so found my way back down the hill towards the waterfront,  passing the picturesque houses and the impressive governor's house.

I finally came across a great little Tapas bar and restaurant called Dali, and enjoyed fresh steamed Grouper, landed that morning.

After lunch (washed down with a couple of Stones beers), there was just enough time for a wander through the now tourist filled shopping district of downtown Nassau before getting back in a taxi and heading off to the airport to return home to Bonnie and TJ, who was very happy to have his dad back.

All in all, a great 24 hours.