On foot in Philipsburg

On our Caribbean cruise, the third island stop was Philipsburg, the capital of the Dutch part of the island of Sint Maarten / Saint-Martin. The island has a volcanic origin and belongs to the Leeward Islands (Antilles). Heading for the second largest cruise port in the Caribbean, I was amazed by all the other much larger ships. Our “Norwegian Dawn” was big enough for my taste, but there were completely different calibers.

A special attraction on the island is the beach Simson Baai. It is located exactly in the approach path of Princess Juliana Airport. The landing planes fly only a few meters over your head, which should certainly be a unique experience for aircraft lovers. We decided to spend the few hours on the island on foot. Worth seeing is the Fort Amsterdam, which offers a great panoramic view over the Great Bay. From the cruise port, the walk to the fort takes about an hour. If you like historical fortifications, you will certainly not regret the trip to this fort.

On the way back we strolled through Philipsburg. It actually only has four parallel shopping streets and a beautiful beach front with many restaurants and bars. Most of the shopping facilities are located between front and back street. There are also countless tourists who groan under the weight of their duty-free purchases. Duty-free shopping is also one of the attractions on the island. However, I have to say that I didn’t find any unbelievably great shops and was probably the only visitor that returned to the ship that day without a souvenir.

For my taste, there were a bit too many (shopping) tourists in Philipsburg. Next time I would take a 30 minute taxi to visit Marigot, the capital of the French town of Saint-Martin. Firstly, you can cross a French-Dutch border in the Caribbean and secondly, Marigot has a southern French flair. I found it funny that those people who visited the French part of the island that day had only one topic of conversation in the evening: namely, there are some popular nudist beaches there, which caused discussions, especially among the American guests.