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With a gorgeous location beside the white-sand beaches of Carlisle Bay, busy Bridgetown is the capital and only city of Barbados. One of the oldest cities in the Caribbean, the architecture of Bridgetown today is largely a blend of attractive, balconied colonial buildings, warehouses and brash modern office blocks. The centre of activity is the Careenage, parking place for numerous sleek yachts overlooked by the Barbadian parliament . A number of the island's main religious buildings are within five minutes' walk of here, including St Michael's Cathedral and the synagogue , both erected on the sites of their mid-seventeenth-century originals.

Just north of the city there are a couple of rum factories that you can tour, while Tyrol Cot is an unusual nineteenth-century house that was home to two of the island's leading post-war politicians, Sir Grantley Adams and his son Tom Adams.

Southeast is the historic Garrison area , where the British empire maintained its Caribbean military headquarters from 1780 to 1905. It's an evocative place; the huge grassy savannah, today a racecourse and public park, was once the army's parade ground. The ranks of brightly coloured military buildings around its edge include the worthwhile Barbados Museum and the Barbados Gallery of Art .

Bridgetown is an extremely safe city, even at night, though you may want to avoid the seedy area southeast of the Fairchild Street bus station, particularly around Nelson Street and Jordan's Lane where the red-light district is located.