view of ships in Nassau from Fort Fincastle

Some ports have things you can walk to from the ship and visit on your own without spending a bunch of money for a shore excursion. Places like Nassau in the Bahamas where the ship docks right in town in a port city often have a variety of things within walking distance of the ship. The port at Nassau exited onto a city street with lots of local shops, bars, and restaurants when we were there, but there was a lot of area behind a fence where port construction was in progress. According to a Nassau port website phase 1 of that construction has been finished now including a museum, shops, and restaurants among other things. While adding stuff to do right at the port it could cause a loss of the local flavor and small independent shops near the port turning Nassau into just one more canned cruise ship port with all the same shops as every other port. Hopefully there are enough other non-ship tourists to keep all the unique little local places from going out of business.

Fort Fincastle

We had two port stops in Nassau on our Caribbean cruise on MSC Meraviglia. At the first one we walked up to nearby Graycliff Hotel where we had tours booked through Vacations to Go. On that stop I went to a chocolate factory while John visited a winery. For our second Nassau port stop we decided to see something we could walk to on our own without booking anything in advance. Having looked online for places within walking distance of the port before the cruise, we decided to visit Fort Fincastle and the Queen’s Staircase. According to google maps the fort and queen’s staircase are about a 13-14 minute walk from the cruise dock. That time started from when you exit the port and get to the street. It is a bit of a walk from the ship to the port exit so it really takes a little longer. Actual time depends on your walking speed. There are sidewalks on some, but not all of the roads between the dock and the fort. Some roads are busy, others not so much. The route google maps gave us went through some neighborhoods where you see the real Nassau. Some streets passed through neighborhoods of homes that probably belonged to some of the city’s not-so-well-off folks. Like most places in hurricane country there were some damaged and abandoned buildings. There’s definitely a litter problem in that area, but the newer posher neighborhood we passed through in a different area looked no better in that respect.

bottom of the Queen’s Staircase and sign at the top

When visiting both the fort and the queen’s staircase if you follow the google map directions up Prison Street it takes you to the top rather than the bottom of the stairs. The fort is on the same road, just beyond the sign for the staircase so if you want to see both go to the fort first unless you want to walk down the staircase and then back up or just want to take photos from the top. You can also walk around a long block from the bottom of the staircase and get back to the road up to the top without walking up the stairs.

Fort Fincastle

Fort Fincastle was constructed on the top of Bennet’s Hill in 1793 in the shape of a ship. It was made from cut limestone. A British lord named Lord Dunmore commissioned it to protect Nassau from pirates. This fort was manned by the 1st West India Regiment, which was the English army’s only black regiment. The fort was not involved in any battles. Signal flags were used to communicate with other nearby forts.

tower and booths of stuff for sale

There’s a tall tower next to the fort which you can see from some places along the road on the way up. It’s not attached to the fort and is boarded up and fenced off so nobody can go inside. There’s lots of little booths with people selling souvenirs and stuff in the area surrounding the fort. We even saw an ice cream truck go by with the music and everything, something I haven’t seen since I was a kid. I bet the ice cream bars cost a whole lot more now than the 10 cents we used to pay for popsicles way back then.

inside the fort

When I looked this up online before our trip the info I found said it cost a dollar or two to go inside the fort, but it actually cost $3 per person plus about another 30 cents each in some sort of tax. So the other info must have been a bit old and out of date on the price. It’s not likely to stay at $3 forever either. It could already be more.

fort entrance

There’s a little gate in the wall on one side of the fort with a stairway leading inside. It looks like you can just walk right in, but there’s an easily missed little booth about 10 feet away where you have to pay first before going in. It’s good that it’s cheap because it’s a pretty small fort so there’s not a whole lot to see inside.

cannons

The stairway leads up to 3 cannons, which still have the tracks they could move them on way back when to increase the area they could aim them at or retract them from the wall. There is a little opening into a small room with informative displays and one with a walkway that leads into a dark area with a video on the history of the fort playing on a continuous loop.

view out the backside of the fort

Another stairway leads up to a higher platform with views of the surrounding area and of the cruise ships. If you stand in the right spot you can take a photo that makes it look like one of the cannons is pointing at the cruise ships. There’s another platform a bit higher with a sign saying that the fort was built on the highest point on the island. It’s a great view from there, which was of course the point of building the fort in that spot so they could see any approaching danger.

Queen’s Staircase

The staircase is very steep and narrow. It was carved into solid limestone from 1793-1794 by slaves as a direct route to Fort Fincastle. It goes down into a long narrow gully with stone or cement walls on both sides and enough greenery to look like it’s in a jungle somewhere. The narrow corridor it leads to eventually meets up with an ordinary street once you get to the end of the walls.

walking down the Queen’s Staircase

The stairway is sometimes referred to as the 66 steps, though it feels longer when you are on it. It got the name Queen’s Staircase decades after it was built, in honor of Queen Victoria because she signed a declaration to abolish slavery on her ascension to the throne in 1837. It is free to walk up and down the staircase, or just to look at it from the top or bottom if you don’t want to walk up or down it.

corridor at the bottom of the Queen’s Staircase

The fort and staircase make a good destination for people who don’t mind a bit of a hike to get there and who want to see something at the port without spending much money. It doesn’t take all that long to get there and back or to see both landmarks so there’s plenty of time left to go somewhere else too. We walked to Ardastra Gardens & Wildlife Conservation Center afterword, which is about 3 kilometers away from the fort. An easy walk for me since I consider 5k a short run, but John thought it was pretty far and that the walk from the fort to the garden was long. It’s a mile from the port to the fort (1.6 kilometers). From the port to Ardastra Gardens is about 3.3 kilometers or just over 2 miles.

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