Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It hosts a crowd of grizzled regulars in the afternoon, which morphs into a younger, club-
bier group at night. The windmill used to pump sea water to the old pool at the Comanche
Hotel. These days, the bar mostly pumps rum and beer. The afternoon crew is a bunch of
characters.
Hotel on the Cay
BAR
Steel pan aficionados head for Hotel on the Cay's bar on Tuesday night for the beach bar-
becue, which also has fire-eaters, broken-bottle dancing (yes, dancing on glass) and mocko
jumbie stilt dancers.
JUMP UPS
Jump Ups are family-friendly street carnivals that happen four times per year in
Christiansted, usually in mid-February, early May, early July and late November.
Steel pan bands play. Mocko jumbies dance on stilts to ward off evil spirits. Stalls
sell local food, drinks and crafts. And restaurants, shops and galleries stay open late.
Families come from all over the island to party under the moonlight. Check the
events calendar at
Go To St Croix(
www.gotostcroix.com
)
for upcoming dates.
Shopping
Christiansted will please visitors who like to buy pretty things. The ambience could hardly
be more fetching, with historic colonial buildings, shady arcades, galleried sidewalks, cool-
ing trade winds, sea views and the lilt of calypso pouring from a host of boutiques and
shops. There are more than 30 Cruzan shopkeepers specializing in gold, gems and hand-
crafted jewelry. Several painters and photographers have galleries in town, too, with most
on Company St near Queen Cross St. The
Art Thursday (
www.artthursday.com
;
5-8pm 3rd Thu of month)
free gallery hop takes place November through June.
There's worthy browsing in the old warehouses that open into courtyards and shopping
pavilions between Strand St and the waterfront. These include the complexes at the Pan Am
Pavilion, Caravelle Arcade and King's Alley. The Gallows Bay development on the east
side of the harbor attracts a lot of snowbirds to the hardware store, bookstore and boutiques
there. For big-box retailers you'll have to head out of town to the malls on Centerline Rd.
