Oranjestad: Dutch colours on the Caribbean

Capital of Aruba, Oranjestad features Dutch colonial houses in vivid colors alongside a Caribbean dry climate, one of the most stable in the entire archipelago.

The center, with its brightly colored facades in Dutch style, is comfortably explored on foot.

The Fort Zoutman, the island's oldest structure dating to the eighteenth century, houses a museum about the Dutch colonial history of Aruba.

A short walk away, the houses on Main Street, painted in the pastel colors typical of Caribbean Dutch architecture, host duty-free shops and restaurants lively until evening.

Continuing on, you visit the National Archaeological Museum, which displays artifacts from the indigenous Arawak peoples who inhabited the island before European arrival.

Toward evening, Eagle Beach, just outside the city, closes the day with its contorted fofoti trees and very white sand, almost always lightly crowded.

Aruba lies outside the Caribbean hurricane belt, a geographic factor that has made the island one of the most climatically stable and predictable destinations in the entire region.

The divi-divi trees (fofoti) that dot Aruba's beaches grow permanently bent in one direction due to the constant trade winds that blow across the island year-round.