Nassau

Nassau is the Caribbean's front parlor: pastel arcades and louvered shutters down Bay Street, a straw market that has outfitted five generations of sun hats, and air that genuinely smells of rum cake in the baking hours. Across two short bridges waits her flamboyant sister, Paradise Island — but the soul stays on this side, where Junkanoo drums are being welded and feathered in backyards all year for two explosive dawns.

The sensible traveller does the old town on foot before the ships empty: the straw market's banter, the Queen's Staircase cut through limestone by hand, Fort Fincastle's harbor view. Lunch is conch — cracked, or as salad with lime — at Arawak Cay's fish fry, where the whole city eats on Sundays. Then the water: Junkanoo Beach if lazy, a ferry to the cays if wise.

The Guide's honesty: when three ships dock, midday downtown is a river of lanyards — do your Nassau before eleven or after four —; Atlantis is a choice, not the islands: its aquarium is genuinely great, its casino is a casino; and the best blue water is one short boat away: budget the day trip before the souvenir.