St. Mary's Cathedral of the Assumption / Kingstown, St. VincentKingstown is the capital city for St. Vincent and the Grenadines and is probably best appreciated for its true West Indian feel rather than for any significant attractions. It's an interesting place to relax and stroll the cobblestone streets. Kingstown is known for its rum shops, stone-block colonial buildings and its churches. St Mary's Cathedral, built in 1823, is the largest and has an eclectic mix of Romanesque arches and columns, Gothic spires and Moorish ornamentation. And like the cathedral, the local economy is in need of repair. Agriculture, dominated by banana production, is the most important sector of this lower-middle-income economy. However, the continuing dependence on a single crop represents the biggest obstacle to the islands' development. The government has been relatively unsuccessful at introducing new industry to the island and an unemployment rate of 20%-plus continues.
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"The Catholic Cathedral", so called because it is across the street from the Anglican Cathedral, which is across the street from the central Methodist Church, is more a memorial of the Belgian priest who designed it than typical of West Indian architecture. You can find a walking tour of Kingstown on http://svg.karleklund.net and many more pictures of St Vincent on the flickr page for "Karlek". A St. Vincent blog can be found at http://svgb.karleklund.net
For better or worse, the hope is that the tourist industry will supplement bananas when a bigger airport is finished in a few years
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