‘Briland’, as locals and repeat visitors call it, is renowned as one of the loveliest, most stylish and enjoyable islands in the Bahamas, if not the Caribbean. Just 5km long and 2km wide, it’s a photogenic bric-a-brac of pink-sand beaches and colonial houses that once served as the national capital. Now it’s a tourist-brochure-designer’s delight: humble pastel cottages abut BS$800-a-night boutique hotels, chickens peck the dust in front of sleek French bistros, and local fishermen wave to millionaire businessmen as they speed past each other in identical golf carts.
Quaint Dunmore Town, on the harbor side, harks back 300 years: it was laid out in 1791 by Lord Dunmore, governor of the Bahamas (1787–96), who had a summer residence here. The clip-clop of hooves may have been replaced with the whir of golf carts, but the daily pace since Dunmore’s time hasn’t changed all that much.
