Pietermaai is the neighbourhood immediately east of Punda, a strip of 19th-century merchant houses that went from elegant to derelict and back to elegant over the course of the 20th century. The restoration began in the early 2000s and is now largely complete — the street is lined with boutique hotels, open-air bars, and restaurants occupying houses with peeling-paint charm or immaculate renovation, sometimes next door to each other.
The neighbourhood has the best nightlife in Willemstad: bars open late, music drifts out into the street, and the mix of tourists and locals is more balanced than in the main historic centre. It is worth walking through by day for the architecture alone — some of the facades here are as ornate as anything on the Handelskade.