Things to do
6-
Blue Mountains
Rising steeply behind Kingston to just over two thousand metres, this range grows the coffee that carries its name on terraces facing the trade winds. Hikers start the Blue Mountain Peak trail around two in the morning to reach the summit for sunrise and the view towards Cuba. Estate tours, guesthouses and a cool damp climate reward a night up there.
-
Bob Marley Museum
Marley's Hope Road house holds his studio, his bedroom and the bullet holes from the 1976 attempt on his life, preserved much as he left them. Guided tours run on the hour and finish with a film in the old rehearsal room. Photography is barred indoors, and the garden, shop and cafe absorb the wait.
-
Devon House
Built in the 1880s by a Jamaican merchant who made his fortune in Venezuelan gold, this white Georgian mansion stands in gardens uptown with its period rooms open to guided tours. The courtyard behind is the real draw, holding an ice cream shop with a long queue and a patty counter. Weekends are busy and the parking fills.
-
Emancipation Park
Green space in New Kingston ringed by a walking track, opened at the turn of the millennium and entered past Laura Facey's Redemption Song, a pair of nude bronze figures whose unveiling caused a national argument. Fountains, benches and free evening concerts keep it busy after work. Gates close at night and the track is floodlit until then.
-
National Gallery of Jamaica
Jamaican art from Taino carving through Edna Manley and the intuitives hangs in a downtown block beside the waterfront, with Mallica Reynolds and Barrington Watson holding the core rooms. Sunday opening is free and often paired with a concert. The surrounding streets are quiet at weekends, so arriving by taxi is the usual approach.
-
Port Royal
Once the pirate capital of the Caribbean, this fishing village at the harbour mouth lost much of itself to the 1692 earthquake, when a third of the town slid into the sea. Fort Charles, a tilted naval building and a small museum survive on the spit. Fried fish on the waterfront and the ferry across from downtown fill an afternoon.