Haughty but Nice

A postcard-ready idyll of tropical fish and pink sand, Tobacco Bay Beach was both startlingly beautiful and very empty one September morning. A pair of snorkelers stirred the lagoon’s only ripples, and the temperature seemed climate-controlled by God’s own thermostat.

No crowds, no problem.

At least not for travelers in search of quiet and a souvenir sunburn, as my girlfriend Ellen and I were. Blame the low turnout partly on Gert, a hurricane that only two days before had been barreling toward Bermuda. It caused no more damage than any heavy rainstorm but prompted thousands of tourists to cancel their visits, leaving plenty of stretching room for anyone who ignored the forecasts and arrived before the airport was closed.

But the blame has to be shared with Bermuda itself. To put it bluntly, Bermuda lacks buzz.

Once a preferred destination for well-heeled sun-seekers and honeymooners, this 21-square-mile stretch of coral reef and pastel-colored homes is struggling to lure the tourist dollars that fire its tiny economy.

Price is part of the problem. Bermuda costs about a third more than its Caribbean rivals during the summer. And Bermuda has a reputation for stuffiness: all those locals with British-sounding accents, mopeding around in formal wear. Other islands want you to drink Jell-O shots. Bermuda would like you to sit up straight and put on a tie. Since 1980, annual air visits have declined 21%.

Bermudans for years watched this slow drop with a calm the queen would envy. Not anymore. By popular demand, the island is getting a make-over. Last year voters tossed out the government that had ruled for decades and elected the Progressive Labor party. The platform: a wide-ranging effort to resuscitate tourism.

“You’ve got to have new product in this industry,” says David H. Allen, the new minister of tourism, a former travel writer and now the island’s leading pitchman. “For years we rested on our laurels.”

Here’s hoping Bermuda doesn’t drop its shorts or do anything foolish to draw new crowds. As I discovered during a week there, despite its lackluster reputation, the island is a charmer. To be sure, it’s expensive and a little precious, and the weather can be erratic. Also, stellar restaurants are rare, although we did find some decent eating spots.

To their everlasting credit, Bermuda’s elders never embraced swarm-the-joint tourism. There are sharp limits on the number of cruise ships that can dock at any one time. (One rock ‘n’ roll-themed cruise was instructed to just keep sailing.) Hotel building has been curtailed, and the whole place is gloriously free of franchise America. Neon signs, fast-food chains and billboards are banned by law.

So Bermuda looks terrific, as lush and kempt as a well-groomed golf course. The tacky quotient, always a danger wherever hordes congregate, is wonderfully low. There is no hustle or hard sell. It boasts not just beauty but that most elusive of qualities: a sense of place.

All that character will cost you. During the summer, a room near a beach starts at about $190; ask for something cheaper and travel agents snicker like French waiters. For about $150 a night, taxes included, I found Aunt Nea’s, a bed-and-breakfast in St. George’s, the oldest and easternmost part of the island. Meals are about $40 a head and sometimes more. Cabs cost around a dollar a minute, and it takes about 25 minutes to traverse half the island, which you’ll want to do often. That adds up fast.

But Bermuda boosters point out that prices drop by 20% in the winter, when the temperature hovers at 68, perfect for golf or tennis, although you’d need a wetsuit to swim. And they note that comparing Bermuda in the summer with, say, St. John’s, Virgin Islands, in the summer is unfair because most of the Caribbean is in full swelter from August to September and discounted accordingly.

Bermuda is parked on the same latitude as Savannah, Ga., and stays about 10 degrees warmer than Georgia, thanks to the Gulf Stream. That’s a relatively northern setting for a sun spot, and it explains why the island can’t promise strings of cloudless days. But it delivers in other ways.

A self-governed British colony, Bermuda was known before World War II primarily as a playground for the elite of Gilded Age travelers. Mark Twain and Eleanor Roosevelt came (though not together), as did Woodrow Wilson, who kicked back here after winning the presidency. In the 1950s and onward, the place became a popular tourist destination, particularly with honeymooners, but by 1980 competition from Caribbean islands had begun nibbling at Bermuda’s bottom line.

Meanwhile, the super-rich moved in. Ross Perot and David Bowie own homes there, and it became the preferred tanning station of such royalty as Prince Albert of Monaco and Fergie, the former Duchess of York. Charming company, certainly, but it sent the unmistakable message that the likes of you, pal, can’t afford Bermuda. The island fell out of fashion. A few years ago the Club Med closed.

The trick now is for Bermuda to update its country-clubby image without losing its distinctive appeal. Tourism minister Allen promises dramatic overhaul isn’t coming. Instead the island will sell itself as a year-round vacation spot, refurbish facilities and offer more kayaking and ecology-oriented day trips. Elbow Beach recently completed a $42-million upgrade to a four-star property, and Grotto Bay Beach Hotel is in the final stage of a $6-million face-lift and expansion that will add 79 rooms. The Hamilton and Southampton Princess hotels are getting top-of-the-line spa facilities. An $11-million eco-resort called Daniel’s Head is being built in Sandy’s Parish. Special deals are planned, too, to attract golfers and others.

Bermuda has retained its own culture, a hybrid that looks like the child England would bear if it married Jamaica and hired Martha Stewart as a nanny. The houses are tidy and salmon-toned, the streets narrow in that distinctive European way. Hibiscus grows everywhere. On still days, the water is bathtub clear.

Tourists can’t rent cars; even the locals are allowed just one vehicle per family, an effort to keep the streets uncluttered. There is a public transportation system of buses and ferries. Mopeds are surprisingly expensive, at about $40 a day, and a bit terrifying. Visitors wipe out constantly on these little devils, failing to navigate the island’s hairpin turns or, worse, forgetting to drive on the left-hand side of the road. My co-pilot/girlfriend whispered “Stay left” in my ear every minute, which helped.

The fear is worth it. With a moped you’re free to scoot to Bermuda’s most storied beaches, clustered on its southern coast. Elbow and Horseshoe beaches are the headliners, but smaller and more private alcoves are scattered throughout. My favorites were Chaplin and Stonehole Bay, which don’t have chair rentals or snack bars and hence are less crowded.

A moped is a must if you’re staying in St. George’s. Settled in 1609 and a good 20 minutes from everything else, the town resembles a French seaside hamlet, with lots of cobblestoned streets, tiny shops and plenty of life blissfully unconnected to the tourist trade.

The people are friendly, though they make it clear that the standard tourist-slob look won’t cut it. A woman uttered something snarky when she spotted me walking a side street without a shirt. It’s less harried than Hamilton, which is often overrun by trinket hunters and snarled by traffic.

“You’re staying in the queen’s conch cottage,” our hostess at Aunt Nea’s told us when we arrived. “It’s for friends, lovers and others.”

Our cottage turned out to be a lovely place to be barricaded while a Category 2 hurricane caterwauled 120 miles off the coast, shutting down the electricity for hours. Gert inspired a few cruise ships to cancel their arrival and thinned the already meager crowds. My counterintuitive travel tip: Fly to Bermuda the day before a hurricane, then enjoy the run of the place.

For about $45 we took a three-hour cruise on a glass-bottom boat, most of which leave from Hamilton. After a half-hour jaunt, the boat parked near a coral reef and everyone jumped out with snorkels to ogle the dazzling variety of fish. That rascal Gert had muddied the water, reducing visibility. I’m told that when the ocean is calm, it’s like swimming in an over-lighted aquarium.

For a place surrounded by fish, Bermuda offers surprisingly little tasty seafood. Apparently nobody has clued in local eateries about the whole light-cooking thing. Chefs are constantly broiling meat, stuffing it with something heavy, wrapping it with something heavier, then pouring on sauce. At Freddie’s Pub in St. George’s, for instance, you can sample chicken stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and smothered with a garlic cream mushroom sauce. Elsewhere, you can tempt cardiac infarction with the steak and Stilton cheese combination, a ubiquitous dish.

Blame the culinary influence of Britain. Bermuda simply doesn’t have much in the way of native cuisine. Aside from a wahoo sauteed with bananas, few restaurants I sampled even pitched their fare as home-grown creations.

As in England, the best bets are ethnic restaurants, in particular the Italian joints, which serve up some inventive pasta dishes and plenty of sublime tiramisu. San Giorgio’s in St. George’s and Ristorante Primavera in Hamilton were excellent.

In pubs and bars, the unofficial national beverage is the rum swizzle, a potent concoction. Visitors can enjoy the smoke of a lifetime and defy U.S. foreign policy at the same time by buying a Cuban cigar, on sale everywhere though not exactly at bargain prices.

There are plenty of blatantly touristy things to do in Bermuda. Hamilton is home to a few streets’ worth of ritzy shops selling big-ticket knickknacks, Louis Vuitton luggage and everything else you’d expect in a well-stocked Saks Fifth Avenue. We spent an hour at the Crystal Caves, an illuminated collection of jutting rocks, which was a dreadful way to spend an hour. Our guide bellowed as though she were trying out for “Hamlet.”

The real fun is just vegetating on a beach and savoring the Bermuda-ness of the place, an improbable blend of sparkle, mopeds and good manners. Rare is the country these days that cares enough about preservation to ban McDonald’s, especially a resort destination that earns nearly half its revenue from an annual influx of visitors who outnumber the populace 10 to 1.

So as Bermuda muddles through its midlife crisis and tries to swing with a younger crowd, let’s pray nobody tries to solve the problem with the vacationland equivalent of a red sports car and a bad toupee. For Bermuda, that just wouldn’t be cricket.

David Segal is a staff writer for the Washington Post.

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GUIDEBOOK

Weathering Bermuda

Getting there: Connecting service to Bermuda from Los Angeles is available on American, US Airways, Delta and Continental airlines. Round-trip fares begin at $494.

Where to stay: We stayed at Aunt Nea’s Inn at Hillcrest in St. George’s, telephone (441) 297-1630, fax (441) 297-1908, Internet https://www.auntneas .com, a guest house that is close to beaches, shopping and golf. Rates begin at $110. Other useful Internet sites that give information on accommodations (from resort hotels to guest houses) are https://www.bermudatourism .com and https://www.bermuda .com.

Where to eat: As in England, the best bets are ethnic, particularly Italian, restaurants, which serve up some inventive pasta dishes and sublime tiramisu. San Giorgio’s, on Water Street in St. George’s, local tel. 297-1307, and Ristorante Primavera, 69 Pitt’s Bay Road, Hamilton, tel. 295-2167, were standouts. Service is uniformly excellent, though nonsmoking sections are hard to find, and the island’s many European tourists have few compunctions about lighting up nearby.

For more information: Bermuda Department of Tourism, 269 S. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90212; tel. (800) BERMUDA or (323) 933-2416, fax (323) 933-2469, Internet https:// www.bermudatourism.com.