Things to do
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Bermuda National Gallery
The national collection, on the upper floor of City Hall, holding Bermudian painting alongside European and African works given by island collectors. The Watlington bequest of old masters is the core of it.
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Fort Hamilton
A Victorian fort on the hill behind the city, its dry moat planted as a subtropical garden of tree ferns and bamboo that is walked as a sunken lane. It was obsolete before it was finished and never fired a shot in anger.
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Admiralty House Park
The grounds of the former residence of the Royal Navy's commander in chief, now public parkland above Clarence Cove, with caves and tunnels cut into the cliff by a nineteenth century admiral. The ledges over the cove are the island's best known place to jump into the sea.
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Albuoy's Point
A small waterside park at the western end of Front Street, beside the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, where the ferries and the cruise tenders come and go. It is the usual place to sit and watch the harbour.
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Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute
A museum on the harbour front given over to the deep ocean and to the wrecks on the reef, built around a simulated dive to the sea floor. The Teddy Tucker collection of treasure recovered off Bermuda is held here.
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Cabinet Building
The seat of the Senate, a limestone building of 1833 set back behind cedars on Front Street. The Convening of Parliament is held on its grounds each November, with the Governor arriving in a plumed hat and the Throne Speech read outdoors.
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Cathedral of Saint Theresa of Lisieux
The Roman Catholic cathedral of Bermuda, finished in 1932 in a Spanish mission manner that sets it apart from everything else on the island. The pale tiled interior is a good deal cooler than the street.
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Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity
The Anglican cathedral of Bermuda, built in local limestone from 1886 after fire destroyed its predecessor, in an early English Gothic manner with Scottish sandstone dressings. The tower is open to climb and gives the highest public view over the city and the harbour.
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City Hall & Arts Centre
The white civic building at the head of Church Street, finished in 1960 to a design by Wil Onions, with a weathervane in the shape of the Sea Venture on its tower. It holds the national gallery and the city's theatre.
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Hamilton Princess & Beach Club
The island's oldest hotel, open since 1885 and named for Princess Louise, whose winter here started Bermuda's tourist trade. It hangs a serious contemporary art collection through its public rooms and runs a boat out to its own beach in Southampton.
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Perot Post Office
A working post office in the house of William Bennet Perot, the postmaster who in 1848 hand signed his own stamps because no printed ones had reached the island. Those Perot Provisionals are among the rarest stamps in the world and a handful are known to survive.
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Queen Elizabeth Park
A small green in the middle of the city, long known as Par-la-Ville Park, laid out as the garden of the postmaster's house next door. The rubber tree at its gate was planted in the 1840s and has been left to sprawl.
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Sessions House
Home of the House of Assembly and the Supreme Court, a Georgian building of 1817 given its Florentine clock tower and terracotta loggia for Queen Victoria's jubilee in 1887. The public may watch the House sit on Friday mornings.
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Spanish Point Park
A headland at the western tip of Pembroke where the Great Sound meets the north shore, with a small beach and the ribs of the floating dock the Navy scuttled offshore. It was named for a Spanish inscription cut into rock before the English arrived.
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Victoria Park
A Victorian public park of 1887 with a cast iron bandstand at its centre, a block back from the shops. Concerts are still held in it through the summer.