Things to Do in Basseterre, St. Kitts

A Self-Guided Walking Tour Full of History Provides Plenty of Things to Do in Basseterre

The ease with which we slip into Caribbean cruising mode—taking it easy and not worrying too much—becomes evident on our very first disembarkation. The first stop on our Southern Caribbean cruise via the Celebrity Summit happens to be Basseterre, the capital of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. On this particular trip, we are kicking back, not pushing ourselves, limiting the number of planned excursions we go on. In sum, we want to meander.

Fortunately, while wandering, we find plenty of things to do in Basseterre.

A Visit to St. George’s Anglican Church

Arriving at Port Zante on a bright Sunday morning, the Brawny Sherpa and I manage to elude all of the shopping opportunities that seem to spring up wherever a cruise ship may be found and instead select a destination we would be unlikely to choose back home: church. We find ourselves at St. George’s Anglican Church on Harvest Day, a celebration we soon learn seems to be about sharing fruit.

Signs within the church mention the fruit of the spirit.

Ladies here wear hats and nice dresses; although we clearly are tourists, the pastor welcomes us, encourages us to have a look around.

A Complicated History

With this building, we get a first introduction to the complicated history of the Caribbean once Europeans arrived. Christopher Columbus got to the island in 1493 and named the place, coincidentally enough, Saint Christopher, a name that somehow got shortened to Saint Kitts when the British arrived around 1623. Not long after, the French showed up. Hostilities ensued. The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 gave possession of St. Kitts to the British, but the French later became aggressive. The British once again ‘officially’ obtained possession of St. Kitts with the Peace of Paris treaty of 1783. More politics over the next couple of centuries happened with St. Kitts and Nevis finally achieving independence from the United Kingdom in 1983.

The church went through a series of changes and calamities of its own, having been established first by the French in 1670 (and called “Notre Dame”). The British burned it in 1706, then rebuilt it, and then it was rebuilt again in 1869 following fire, hurricanes, and an earthquake. The building and the people here are a testament to resilience, through very bad times and good ones.

Visitors can glean a bit more history by walking through the graveyard that surrounds the church.

On to Independence Square

With several items still on our list of things to do in Basseterre, we make our way to the place formerly known as Pall Mall Square and now called Independence Square, renamed when St. Kitts and Nevis gained independence from the United Kingdom. A bit of British remains, though, in the old phone booth still on the site.

This place has a sad past, though. Independence Square is the site of a former slave market where Africans transported here were sold. The 1807 Abolition Act “forced Britain to legally end its 207-year-old trade in African human beings,” Al Harris writes in a 2008 work, The UNESCO Slave Route Project: Why St. Kitts Must Have a Monument To the Abolition of the Slave Trade, a copy of which I pick up on the island.

The “old Pall Mall Square became a symbol of British colonial subjugation and exploitation of every African-Kittitian – even after slavery ceased to exist,” Harris continues.

The National Museum of St. Kitts

We learn a bit more about St. Kitts and its heritage at the National Museum of Saint Kitts, housed in a former treasury building constructed in 1894. The need for sugar seems to have encouraged some bad acts on the part of colonial leaders.

Sugar, rum, plantations, and slavery made for an unfortunate combination on this island, which has fertile soil thanks to an extinct volcano.

For Those with a Passion for Postal

One of us on this walking tour has a proclivity for post offices and handwritten letters, so we breeze past the post office on Basseterre.

Cruising by the Berkeley Memorial Tower Clock

We cannot help but notice a large green clock, a tribute to a former legislator, in what is called the Basseterre Circus. This circus is indeed a ring, but not the sort where there is a big top.

Time for a Cocktail

Our walking tour of Basseterre coming to an end, we stop for some outdoor refreshment before going back on board our ship. Yes, we are surrounded by tourists, but sunny days and pina coladas work well anywhere.

—Lori Tripoli

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Looking for things to do in Basseterre or Other Caribbean Islands? You might like these posts:

• Celebrity Summit Cruising
• Staying in San Juan Now
• Visiting San Juan Now
• An Antigua Courthouse Turned Museum in St. John’s
• Barbados Excursion: A Mount Gay Rum Tour

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