Basseterre

Basseterre keeps her heart in a roundabout called the Circus, crowned by a green Victorian clock that has told approximate time to bankers, fishermen and carnival troupes alike since the sugar boom paid for the facades. St. Kitts was once the richest crumb of the empire per acre; the town still walks like it, unhurried, between stone churches and galleried shopfronts.

The sensible traveller circles the Circus and Independence Square — slave market turned garden, which the town does not hide —, then rides the old sugar train around the island's skirt, cane fields to the sea on one side, Liamuiga's green volcano on the other. Brimstone Hill's UNESCO fortress earns its afternoon; the ferry to Nevis, Alexander Hamilton's quiet birth-island, earns its whole day.

The Guide's honesty: cruise days triple the town by noon — do Basseterre early and be up at Brimstone when the gangways open —; the scenic railway is unabashedly touristic and genuinely lovely: take it once, window right; and Nevis is the civilized secret: hot springs, one long beach, and a pace that makes St. Kitts look hurried.