2 Best Sights in Bermuda

Running along the harbor, Hamilton's main thoroughfare bustles with small cars, scooters, bicycles, buses, and sometimes hordes of cruise-ship passengers. The prime attractions here are the high-class, low-rise shops that line the street, but be sure not to overlook small offshoots and alleyways like Old Cellar Lane and the Walker Arcade, where you'll stumble upon hidden-away boutiques. If visiting between May and August, on Wednesday evenings Front Street is closed to vehicular traffic to make way for the popular Harbour Nights, which features entertainment, food, and locally made products.

While roaming the backstreets, look for Nea's Alley. Nineteenth-century Irish poet Thomas Moore, who lived in St. George's during his tenure as registrar of the admiralty court, waxed poetic about both this "lime-covered alley" and a lovely woman he first encountered here: his boss's teenage bride, Nea Tucker. Though arguably the most amorous, Moore wasn't the only writer to be inspired by Bermuda.

Mark Twain wrote about it in The Innocents Abroad, and his exclamation "You go to heaven if you want to; I'd rather stay in Bermuda" remains something of a motto in these parts. Two 20th-century playwrights, Eugene O'Neill and Noel Coward, also wintered—and worked—on the island. More recently, former Bermuda resident Peter Benchley took the idea for his novel The Deep from the ships lost offshore.