Full Island Panoramic Tour of St Kitts

Full Island Panoramic Tour of St Kitts

Our award winning panoramic, full island tour is a must-do if you're in port for the day or visiting for a few days. All  island tours include the following points of interest: National Museum, Berkeley Memorial, Independence Square, various churches on the island, The Birds Nest, Bloody Point, Carving Of De Rocks, Wingfield Plantation and the start of the rainforest. We'll stop at the botanical gardens at Romney Manor, home of Caribelle Batik. From there we continue to Brimstone Hill Fortress, the only UNESCO world heritage site in the Caribbean. We then stop at the Black Rocks with some amazing rock formations. We carry on to the Southern Peninsula where the breathtaking view of the Atlantic Ocean on your left and the Caribbean Sea on your right is a site not to be missed. This tour lasts 3.5-4 hours.

This tour can also be booked as a private tour for a special rate.

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, Main Road St. Kitts

The Fortress, constructed intermittently between the 1690s and 1790s, is of singular importance as being the remains of a large, complete military community of the 18th century. As such, it is a veritable time capsule of international significance.

The prominent Citadel is one of the earliest and finest surviving examples of a new style of fortification known as the 'polygonal system'.

Brimstone Hill is nearly 800 feet high with steep and precipitous slopes which had to be tamed by the disciplines of engineering and architecture, and at the risk and probable loss of human lives. The walls of the structures are predominantly of stone, labouriously and skilfully fashioned from the hard volcanic rock of which the hill is composed. The mortar to cement the stones was produced on site from the limestone which covers much of the middle and lower slopes. The Fortress is virtually a man-made out growth of the natural hill.

The physical location of the Fortress presents attractive panoramic vistas of forested mountains, cultivated fields, the historical township of Sandy Point, and neighbouring Dutch, English and French islands across the Caribbean Sea.

Duration: 25 minutes

Stop At: Black Rocks, Atlantic coast Outside town of Sadlers St. Kitts

Black Rocks ,also referred to as Black Stone, is the name of a notable rock formation on the northeastern coast of the island of Saint Kitts. Located close to the town of Saddlers, the rocks consist of lava flow from the volcanic Mount Liamuiga which dominates the northern half of the island of Saint Kitts

Duration: 10 minutes

Stop At: Romney Manor, Old Road Town, Basseterre St. Kitts

Set in approximately 8 acres, these grounds have considerable history dating back to the 1600s. Prior to the island's European conquest, which began in 1623, there is strong evidence that Carib Indian Chief Tegreman’s village occupied the site. Petroglyphs located on the Wingfield Estate attest to the presence of Amerindians at some point during the property's history.

Most of the activity on the property, has been growing & distilling sugar cane. Over the years, its owners have witnessed the crushing of cane by animal, water, and steam power. This all changed in the 1920s as the cane processing became centralized in the nation's capital, Basseterre. The Wingfield Estate grew, harvested, and loaded sugar cane until the mid-2000s, that's 350 years!

Romney Manor became a batik enterprise in the 1970s under the tutelage of its current owner. Wingfield Estate began its transition to the beautiful gardens and active archeological site it is today in the 2000s, when the St. Kitts government discontinued all sugar cane operations on the island.

Many visitors frequently express a sense of spirituality while enjoying the gardens and grounds. An all-time favourite is our magnificent Saman tree, the largest living organism in St. Kitts. It is over 400 years old, 24 ft in circumference, and covers ½ acre. Just imagine the stories it could tell. Many visitors return time and time again to savour this memorable experience. The present owner feels more a sense of stewardship than ownership, recognizing the magnificent Saman tree as the true owner of all it surveys.

Duration: 15 minutes

Pass By: The Circus, Bay Road Bank Street Fort Street, Basseterre St. Kitts

The Berkeley Memorial was erected in 1883 and was for a long time the only public memorial commemorating an individual in St. Kitts. It was dedicated to the memory of Thomas Berkeley Hardtman Berkeley, a legislator and owner of the estates called Fountain, Greenland, Greenhill, Ottleys, Shadwell and Stone Fort.

Pass By: Berkeley Memorial, Basseterre St. Kitts

THE WAR MEMORIAL was originally unveiled in 1926 at the place now occupied by the Post Office. It honoured the men who died in the First World War.

Stop At: Timothy Hill, Street to South End St. Kitts

Timothy Hill is a popular lookout spot located a short distance from Frigate Beach, Timothy Hill provides a view of the sparkling Atlantic Ocean where it meets the Caribbean Sea. Within the two bodies of water you’ll see lush, green foliage and the gently sloping hills of the southeast peninsula of St Kitts from your vantage point above. You’ll even be able to see the neighboring island of Nevis in the distance.



Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Wingfield-Phillips Rain Forest Nature Trail, St. Kitts

Wingfield Estate is adjacent to Wingfield River in a lush rainforest located in Old Road Town, St. Kitts. The estate is set in the picturesque foothills of the island’s central mountain range, with elevations over 3000 ft. One of the unique aspects of this area is the Wingfield watershed. This is a natural resource that covers hundreds of acres, depositing water into Wingfield River. The watershed provides the island with more than ¾ of the island's water requirement.

Wingfield Estate is one of four places on St. Kitts that has 17th century Amerindian petroglyphs (a carving or inscription on a rock). The petroglyphs of Wingfield Estate are considered to be amongst one of the finest examples of rock carvings in the Lesser Antilles, and on St. Kitts they are one of the most accessible. Local folklore states that Carib Chief Tegreman, a powerful Amerindian chief who ruled several islands, had his village within the grounds of Romney Manor.

Wingfield was the first land grant in the English West Indies in 1625. The property's original crops were tobacco & indigo, dating from 1625 to the 1650s. Sugar cane became more profitable and was continuously grown on the site for 350 years, from the 1650s to the mid-2000s.

The sugar industry functioned over the centuries using, in order: animal-driven, water-driven, and eventually steam-driven methods of crushing the cane. Water power was used from the 1600s to 1920s, with aqueducts and a water turbine unique in the Eastern Caribbean.

Duration: 15 minutes

Pass By: Bloody Point, St. Kitts

Bloody Point is situated to the west of Challengers Village. It gets its name from the Massacre of the Kalinago that took place in the vicinity.

Pass By: St Theresa Catholic Church, Main Road, Charlestown Nevis

CO-CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is an ornate church constructed out of grey stone and located on the eastern side of Independence Square. In the early years of the French occupation of St. Kitts, the Jesuits had build a Roman Catholic Church and dedicated it to Our Lady. Notre Dame was burned in 1706 during the Anglo-French war and rebuilt later as St. Georges Anglican Church. The catholic congregation in St. Kitts diminished drastically in the years following the Treaty of Utrecht.

In 1713 the English forbade public worship of the Catholic religion in St. Kitts. Wealthy Catholic families erected cupolas on the tops of their houses as a sign for other catholics to come and worship. Only two such buildings remain in Basseterre both on Liverpool Row.

Pass By: St. George's Anglican Church, Nevis

ST. GEORGE’S ANGLICAN CHURCH is the largest church in Basseterre. It stands at the head of Church Street and resembles an English parish church in style. The outer walls are of heavy andesite rock and the roof is covered in slate. Like many of the buildings in Basseterre this church has had its ups and downs, often rising from ashes like the mythical Phoenix.

In 1635, at the request of the directors of the Company of the Isles of America, the Provincial of the Capuchin Friars of Normandy assigned three men, Fathers Jerome, Marc and Pacifique de Provins to care for the spiritual needs of the French colonists on St. Kitts and to attempt the conversion of the small Kalinago population that remained on the island after the massacre of 1627. In Basseterre they erected a place of worship which Rochefort describes as a fair Church able to contain a very great Congregation: The Structure is of wood, rais'd on a foundation of Free-stone: Instead of Glass-windows there are only turned Pillars, after the fashion of a Balcony. It is cover'd with red Slate. The Friars also had churches in Cayon and Capisterre but in 1646, Governor De Poincy felt that they were taking sides against him and ordered them to leave the colony. He replaced them with the Jesuits. In 1672 they built a church which they called Notre Dame.

Pass By: Independence Square, Basseterre St. Kitts

NDEPENDENCE SQUARE formerly Pall Mall Square, was renamed on the 19th September 1983 to commemorate the birth of the new nation of St. Christopher and Nevis. It is located on the eastern side of Basseterre bordering on Newtown. Its layout was designed to look like a Union Jack and the streets and houses surrounding it once dated to the mid-eighteenth century. Unfortunately, time and environmental damage have destroyed many of them. Some like the Court House and Public Library have been destroyed by fire and have been rebuilt.