Port of Spain

The island was sighted by Columbus in 1498 and named Trinidad, but for almost three centuries it was a Spanish backwater with few settlers. The first town of note was San José de Oruña (now St Joseph) inland; the coastal hamlet on the Gulf of Paria, called Puerto de España, was a fishing and trading landing. The turning point came in 1783, when the Spanish Crown issued the Cédula of Population, inviting Catholic settlers of any nationality, chiefly French planters from the smaller islands, to bring their capital and enslaved workers to Trinidad.

Governor José María Chacón used the influx to lay out a new capital. In the 1780s the seat of government moved to Puerto de España, and a regular grid of streets was drawn along the shore, with a square at its centre. Many of the street names of downtown Port of Spain, and the French Creole surnames that are still common in the city, date from this period. The result was a cosmopolitan, French-speaking, Catholic town under a Spanish flag.

Britain captured the island in 1797, and Trinidad was formally ceded in 1802. The British kept the French Creole planter class in place and added their own institutions: the Royal Botanic Gardens were laid out from 1818, the Anglican cathedral (Holy Trinity) opened in the 1820s, and the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Immaculate Conception followed in the early 1830s. Fires in 1808 and 1895 burned the wooden city and prompted rebuilding in stone and brick.

Slavery ended in 1834, followed by a four-year apprenticeship, and the arrival of indentured workers from India from 1845 changed the island's balance. By the twentieth century Trinidad's population was roughly evenly divided between people of African and Indian descent, with smaller communities from China, the Middle East, Portugal and Europe. Port of Spain remained the administrative and commercial centre.

The Water Riots of 1903 burned the Red House, the seat of government, which was rebuilt and reopened in 1907. Labour unrest in 1937 and the rise of political parties led to universal adult suffrage in 1946 and independence on 31 August 1962. Trinidad and Tobago became a republic on 24 September 1976. In July 1990 an attempted coup by the Jamaat al Muslimeen ended in a siege of the Red House and the police headquarters, a moment many older residents still date their lives by.

Downtown is the oldest part of the city and still its working heart. The grid runs back from the waterfront, with Independence Square as its long central promenade, Frederick Street as the shopping spine and Woodford Square, the city's political park, a few blocks north. By day it is crowded with office workers, vendors and shoppers. By 18:00 most people have gone home, and the streets empty, which is why visitors are told to leave downtown by dusk.

Woodbrook, to the west, began in the early twentieth century as a suburb of tidy wooden houses with fretwork and jalousies. It is now the city's restaurant and nightlife district, centred on Ariapita Avenue, with mas camps (the workshops where Carnival costumes are built) and small guesthouses among the older houses. Some of the first steelbands practised in and around Woodbrook in the 1940s, and the neighbourhood still has a strong Carnival identity.

The Queen's Park Savannah, about 260 acres of open grass, was once a sugar estate and later a common. It is the city's playground: joggers and walkers ring it at dawn, coconut vendors and corn-soup sellers set up along the edges, cricket is played at the Queen's Park Oval beside it, and the Grand Stand hosts the finals of Carnival competitions. Around its western edge stands the row of villas known as the Magnificent Seven.

North of the Savannah, St Clair and Maraval are leafy residential districts with embassies, private hospitals and hillside houses, and the Royal Botanic Gardens and Emperor Valley Zoo sit at the park's northern edge. To the east, Laventille and the hill neighbourhoods above the city are the birthplace of the steelpan and of much of the city's Carnival music, and they are also where the city's crime problem is concentrated; visitors go there only with a local guide.

Chaguaramas, on the peninsula west of the city, was a United States naval base during the Second World War and is now a national park with boatyards, hiking trails and beaches. Maracas Bay, over the Northern Range on the north coast, is the classic beach day, reached by a road that climbs through the rainforest and drops to the sea.

Port of Spain's built heritage is a mix of Spanish grid, British civic buildings and the Victorian and Edwardian houses of the sugar and cocoa elite. Because of the fires of 1808 and 1895 few buildings survive from the Spanish period, and much of what stands downtown dates from the nineteenth century, including the two cathedrals, the Red House and the older churches around the squares.

The Red House, opened in 1844 and rebuilt after the 1903 riots, is a Renaissance-style building that houses parliamentary offices beside Woodford Square. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, with its twin towers, is a Neo-Gothic landmark at the head of Independence Square, completed in the early 1830s. Holy Trinity Cathedral, the Anglican seat, dates from the 1820s and stands near Woodford Square.

The most striking group is the Magnificent Seven, a set of grand houses built around the Savannah in the early twentieth century, largely between about 1900 and 1910, when cocoa and commerce produced wealth. They are Queen's Royal College (the school building), Hayes Court, Whitehall, Roomor, Mille Fleurs, the Archbishop's House and Stollmeyer's Castle, also called Killarney. The castle, built for the Stollmeyer family and reportedly inspired by a Scottish castle, is the most photographed, with its turrets and stone walls.

Most of the Seven are now schools, offices or residences, and some have been restored more than others. Interiors are generally not open to visitors, so the walk is a look from the road. Around Woodbrook and St James, smaller wooden 'gingerbread' houses with fretwork, shuttered windows and steep roofs survive in pockets among newer concrete buildings.

Modern Port of Spain has its own landmarks: high-rise offices along the waterfront, the National Academy for the Performing Arts on Independence Square, and the Hilton on Lady Chancellor Hill, nicknamed the upside-down hotel for its design. The architecture is mixed, sometimes awkwardly, but it tells the story of a colonial port becoming a national capital.

Carnival in Trinidad began as a French Creole tradition of masked balls and street parties before Lent, brought by the planters who arrived in the 1780s. After emancipation, the newly free African population took the festival to the streets, turning it into a celebration of freedom and a form of satire. The night procession known as Canboulay (from the French cannes brûlées, burnt cane), which recalled the fighting of estate fires by enslaved workers, was regulated by the British authorities and led to clashes with police in the Canboulay riots of 1881.

Today Carnival takes place on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, but the season begins after Christmas. Fetes run every weekend, calypso and soca compete for the Road March and Soca Monarch titles, and the steelbands rehearse for Panorama, the national competition held on the Saturday before Carnival. J'ouvert, from the French jour ouvert, begins before dawn on Carnival Monday with paint, mud and music, and the parade of the bands, in costumes of feathers, sequins and beads, fills downtown and the Savannah on both days.

The steelpan was invented in Port of Spain in the 1930s and 1940s, in the poor neighbourhoods of the city, by musicians who turned discarded oil drums into pitched instruments after bamboo bands were banned. Names associated with its early development include Winston 'Spree' Simon, Ellie Mannette, Neville Jules and Anthony Williams. It is often called the only new acoustic instrument invented in the twentieth century, and in 1992 it was declared the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago.

Panorama began in 1963 and remains the peak of the pan year, with bands of dozens or hundreds of players arranging calypsos into large orchestral pieces. Pan yards, the open-air rehearsal spaces where bands practise, are open to the public in the weeks before Carnival, and visiting one is one of the best musical experiences in the city. Visit with a local guide or a trusted driver, because many yards are in areas visitors do not walk.

Beyond Carnival, the city has other seasons: Phagwah (Holi) in March, Divali in the autumn, parang in December, and Hosay processions in some neighbourhoods. The point is that public celebration is a part of the calendar, and visitors will find something happening in most months.

Trinidadian food is the story of the island's peoples on a plate. The Indian indentured workers who arrived from 1845 brought roti, curry, channa and chutneys, and their descendants turned them into street food. The African and Creole tradition gave pelau, callaloo, stew chicken and provisions, the boiled roots and plantains served with a meal. Chinese, Syrian-Lebanese, Portuguese and Venezuelan influences add noodles, kibbeh, pastelles and more.

The city's signature breakfast is doubles: two soft fried breads (bara) folded around curried chickpeas (channa) with tamarind, cucumber and pepper sauces. Doubles are sold by roadside vendors from dawn until they sell out, cost a few Trinidad and Tobago dollars, and are a national obsession. Order them 'with slight pepper' if you do not want a burn.

Roti is a flat bread wrapped around curried fillings: chickpeas and potato (channa and aloo), chicken, goat or shrimp. 'Buss up shut', named for a torn shirt, is a soft, flaky paratha served with curry to scoop. Pelau is a one-pot dish of rice, pigeon peas and meat cooked in caramelised sugar and coconut milk, callaloo is a thick soup of dasheen leaves, okra and coconut milk, and corn soup is a late-afternoon Savannah favourite.

The classic north-coast dish is bake and shark: fried shark in a fried bread, dressed at the stand with a range of sauces and toppings. At Christmas the city drinks sorrel and eats black cake soaked in rum, ham and pastelles, and parang music plays in the shops. The local beers are Carib and Stag, rum is a national drink, and Angostura aromatic bitters, made in Trinidad since the Siegert family moved the company here in 1875, are in every bar.

The best way to learn the city is to eat at its stalls: doubles at dawn, a roti at lunch, coconut water on the Savannah in the afternoon and dinner on Ariapita Avenue. Carry cash, ask for 'slight pepper' until you know your tolerance, and eat where the locals queue.

Port of Spain is the seat of government and the commercial capital of a country whose economy is built on oil and natural gas. Banks, energy companies, government ministries and the port employ tens of thousands of people who commute in from Diego Martin, Arima, Chaguanas and beyond, which is why the city's traffic is heavy and its streets empty at night.

The population of the country is about 1.4 million. Roughly equal shares are of African and of Indian descent, with a large mixed group and smaller communities of Chinese, Syrian-Lebanese, Portuguese and European ancestry. English is the official language, spoken with a Creole accent and vocabulary: 'lime' means to hang out, 'bacchanal' is a scandal or a party, and 'allyuh' is 'all of you'.

Religious life is varied: Roman Catholic, Anglican, Hindu, Muslim, Presbyterian, Spiritual Baptist and Orisha communities all have places of worship in or near the city, and public holidays cover Christian, Hindu, Muslim and secular occasions. Divali, Eid ul-Fitr, Easter, Emancipation Day, Indian Arrival Day and Independence Day are all days off.

Crime is a real feature of city life. Robbery, kidnapping and murder rates are high by regional standards, and the government has declared states of emergency at times. The risk to visitors is mostly from robbery and theft rather than random violence, and the advice is consistent: take taxis after dark, avoid the areas east of downtown, keep valuables out of sight and do not resist a robbery.

For a short stay the best rhythm is the one locals follow: sights in the early morning, an indoor rest at midday, a late-afternoon walk on the Savannah and a dinner out by taxi. Do that, be polite, say good morning before you ask a question, and the city is generous. Locals will often offer directions, a taste of what they are eating or the name of a better place to stand for the parade, and a friendly greeting costs nothing. Give it back: tip fairly, buy from the person who is queueing rather than the one who calls you over, and ask before you photograph.