Bermuda Arts Centre, Dockyard
This wonderful gallery is packed with quality original 3D and 2D artwork and prints from some of Bermuda’s best artists. All of the work in the gallery is displayed and for sale, and the casual art observer and the art collector will both have a grand time here. The center has artwork for sale for almost any price range, and the breadth of the work contained in the large building will charm visitors.
In addition, the arts center includes studio spaces currently inhabited by four Bermudian artists; Nahed Eid, a mixed media sculptor, Christopher Grimes, an oil painter, Christopher Marson, a watercolour painter, and Chelsey Trott, a Bermuda Cedar woodworker. Visitors can tour the studios and see the spaces where artists work, and if you happen to visit when the artists are present, they’re usually more than happy to talk about their work.
Walsingham Nature Reserve, Hamilton Parish
This nature reserve is one that every Bermudian should visit because it is home to one of our most interesting and archetypal habitats – cave systems. Though we have both marine and dry caves, all of our caves were created by the action of rainwater on limestone. This reaction between carbonic acid and calcium carbonate has the power to create beautiful speleothems over millions of years, including stalactites and stalagmites. Visitors can walk through the dry caves, and take a refreshing swim in the darkness of flooded caves.
The walking trails in Walsingham lead visitors through a network of beautiful coastal pathways, mangrove swamps, and inland forest with a basement of caves. The beautiful Walsingham Pond is another biologically important habitat, and home to a single large green sea turtle – it is said that the turtle swam in to the pond as a hatchling, but soon grew too large to swim back out and is now a mature adult.
Somer’s Gardens, St. George
These tropical gardens include towering palm trees, luscious bird of paradise plants, and creeping rose bushes. The spot of greenery is contained within the town, bordered by York Street, the main street for vehicle traffic in St. George’s, on one side and residential streets on the others. Surprisingly quiet and rarely visited, the gardens contain a tomb in one corner.
Sir George Somers was the founder of Bermuda, who stumbled upon the island – one of colonial England’s few true discoveries – when The Sea Venture was wrecked on its shores. He grew very attached to the island and wished to be buried there, and his wish was partially honored by the burial of his heart in the tomb at Somers Gardens. The rest of his body was taken back to England by his nephew.
