Windwardside

Windwardside is where most visitors stay, and it earns its role as the island's social hub. The village sits at roughly 500 metres elevation on the windward slope of the mountain, a cluster of white houses with red roofs surrounded by gardens. At this altitude the air is noticeably cooler than the coast, and the clouds that drift across from the Atlantic give the place a misty, otherworldly feel in the early morning.

The main street has a few restaurants, a couple of dive shops, a small supermarket, and the Saba Museum, which occupies a 150-year-old sea captain's house and tells the island's story through domestic objects, photographs, and maritime relics. The trail to Mount Scenery begins at the upper end of the village. Most of the island's restaurants are also here; the standards are modest by comparison with a larger island but the cooking is honest and portions are generous. Windwardside is small enough to walk end-to-end in ten minutes, which is part of its charm.

things to do neighbourhood
A story
The Dutch colonial architecture of Windwardside — white-painted wooden houses with red-shingled roofs, perched on a ridge at around 500 metres elevation — looks more like a village transplanted from the Netherlands than anything you'd expect in the Caribbean. The resemblance is not accidental; Saba has maintained a strong Dutch administrative tradition, and building styles have reflected it for centuries.