Gustavia

Gustavia is the beating heart of Saint-Barthelemy, a picture-perfect harbour town named after Swedish King Gustav III and still bearing the architectural traces of its eighteenth-century Swedish colonial period. The red-roofed stone buildings that ring the harbour now house some of the Caribbean’s most celebrated restaurants, jewellery boutiques, and luxury fashion houses, creating an atmosphere of concentrated elegance unique in the region. Superyachts anchor in the bay with an almost theatrical regularity, and the waterfront terraces offer magnificent views of the fleet. The Wall House museum documents the island’s unusual history, while the surrounding hilltop villas look down on this extraordinary scene from positions of privileged height above the old harbour.