SAINT VINCENT & THE GRENADINES

images : awl images ; Karolina Wiercigroch ; getty

Clockwise from top left : A wooden jetty leads to the sea on the island of Bequia ; Julicia Lewis gets into the swing of things on Brighton Beach , Saint Vincent ; St . George ’ s Cathedral , Kingstown

Previous pages : Big Sand Beach , Union Island ; Masani Defreitas performs a traditional dance at Imani Culture Club , Union Island

inside Saint Vincent ’ s Anglican

Cathedral , where the scorching heat of midday has given way to a reverent musty dimness . Cool radiates from the tiled transept floor through the soles of my sandals , but high above my head the window is aflame , the vermillion-robed angel on it ablaze with sunlight . This fiery scarlet centerpiece of the stained-glass window , so the story goes , caused such consternation with Queen Victoria , who had commissioned the glasswork in honor of her grandson , that it never found its intended home in London ’ s St . Paul ’ s Cathedral . Lacking the respectful white robes requisite of a Victorian angel , the window was later gifted to the bishop of the Caribbean ’ s Windward Islands .

England ’ s loss , Saint Vincent ’ s gain , I say . The window is powerfully beautiful , the angel descended as if from some joyfully technicolor heaven , and it ’ s some minutes before I tear my eyes away to notice the church ’ s chandelier . The giant , gilded wood centerpiece is also , legend has it , of English origin , lost at sea and salvaged from a shipwreck . “ There are many stories ,” smiles my guide , Julicia Lewis .

We ’ re exploring Saint Vincent ’ s capital , Kingstown ( known as the ‘ City of Arches ’), a modest city with two main streets snaking up the hillside from a harbor built on land reclaimed from the deep arc of Kingstown Bay . As we walk , Julicia points out the gray brick buildings constructed from ballast stone left in Saint Vincent by 18thcentury trading ships , sugar and spices

packed for their return trips to Europe . Kingstown ’ s oldest streets shelter under the Georgian-style stone porticoes that support overhanging second-floor warehouses : perfect respite from the sun and storm bursts that are the Caribbean ’ s constant companions .

The market , a few blocks away , is more a case of function over form , a purposebuilt concrete block that opened in 2021 to rescue vendors from the heat of Kingstown ’ s streets . It ’ s a colorful showcase of the impressive bounty of Saint Vincent , an island whose fertile volcanic soil yields much of the fruit and vegetables consumed in neighboring islands in the West Indies . Aisles are fragrant with nutmeg and mauby bark used in medicinal teas to ‘ clean the blood ’. Among the rainbow of tropical fruits , treasures include rough blocks of islandmade chocolate and bags of sea salt from Union island in the Grenadines .

Saint Vincent is by far the largest and most populated of the 32 islands and cays comprising the southern Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , and is the regional hub for travel and trade . A new international airport opened here in 2017 but , despite this , the island remains low-key as far as international hotels go . We leave Kingstown driving along the former airport runway , now a road overlooked by a lively bar set in the old control tower . Heading northwest , small farms growing groundnut and ginger , and root vegetables such as sweet potato and dasheen , are terraced into the hillsides rising out of Kingstown Bay . We stop just outside Layou ,

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