Saba / Places of Interest

Saba is so small, with one main road, that you will soon encounter its key sights whether you want to or not. Published opening times are not always adhered to, but just ask around as the key-holder may not be far away.

Historical Sites

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport - Saba is home to the shortest commercial runway in the world. Just 1,300ft (400m) long, it has become an attraction in itself and local shops sell T-shirts bearing proud slogans such as “I Survived The Saba Landing”. Arriving on what locals call “the aircraft carrier” is certainly exhilarating as the pilot slams on the brakes to achieve an abrupt and noisy halt rather than continue over the cliffs and into the sea - but fear not. Winair's pilots are specially trained in flying STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft and there has not been an accident since the airport opened in 1963.

“The Impossible Road” - Saba owes everything to the determination of Josephus Lambert Hassell, an islander who conceived and then heroically built the one main road that now snakes across the island from Fort Bay to the airport. While nay-saying Dutch engineers deemed the project “impossible”, with true Saban grit Hassler enrolled for a correspondence course in highway construction and then started work in 1938 with a team of local farmers armed with shovels and wheelbarrows. The first section climbing up from the harbour to the island capital, The Bottom, took five years to complete and includes 20 bends squirming over a distance of 1.6 miles (2.6km) and with a rise of 1,300ft (400m). The 19 mile (31km) road was eventually completed in 1958, and today its creator is commemorated in a plaque near The Bottom that pays tribute to the “engineer of this road that could not be built”.

Museums

Harry L. Johnson Museum, Windwardside - Named after its founder, this attractive cottage museum in the centre of Windwardside is the former home of a Saban seafarer, Captain Josiah Petersen. With wooden floors, period furniture, old photographs and Saban lace curtains, its five small rooms present an atmospheric picture of island life in the early 20th century. The grounds outside include a statue honouring the Venezuelan revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar, who briefly visited the island in 1816. Open Monday-Friday, for access enquire at the Saba Tourist Bureau, Windwardside, t 416 2231.

Towns

The Bottom - Saba's capital rests on a sheltered plateau in the southeast of the island. Home to the hospital, government offices, Queen Wilhelmina Library and Saba University School of Medicine, it is primarily an administrative centre but nevertheless well worth a stroll. Don't miss the Saba Arts Foundation, which sells local arts, crafts and souvenirs, and the nearby Church of the Sacred Heart (1935) which has lively interior murals painted by the Dutch artist Heleen Cornet.

Windwardside - The island's main tourist centre is the best place to stay, eat, shop and party. It is also a prime spot for admiring Saba's distinctive wooden cottages, some of which are now rented to visitors. Solidly constructed by carpenters equally at home with boat-building, these invariably come with a red wood-shingle roof, gingerbread fretwork, windows painted in green, a small terrace and a stonewalled garden with a concrete cistern to collect rainwater. At one end is the kitchen with a stone fireplace and chimney. Another common sight in Windwardside it its many cemeteries – some are large, others just small plots close to a family cottage. The same names, especially Hassell and Johnson, crop up repeatedly on the headstones.