The knoll overlooking the Carenage has been fortified since the French built their first wooden defenses in the 1660s. By 1710, a proper star fort stood there, designed by Jean de Giou de Caylus, the chief engineer of France's Caribbean colonies. The British captured it in 1762 and renamed it Fort George after King George III - but they did a poor job of defending against overland attack. Back came the French in 1779, who built Fort Frederick on Richmond Hill to exploit exactly that weakness. The 1783 Peace of Paris handed Grenada back to Britain for good, and the French received Pondicherry in exchange. Their economic defeat helped set them on the road to revolution. Today Fort George serves partly as police headquarters, partly as a neglected historic site. The view from the ramparts remains extraordinary, even if the masonry does not.

Sendall Tunnel is a 340-foot passage bored straight through the rock beneath Fort George, connecting the Carenage waterfront to the Church Street district on the other side. For vehicles it runs one-way northbound; pedestrians share the road, pressing against the wall when trucks rumble past in the poorly ventilated dark. It is claustrophobic, slightly terrifying, and entirely practical - the alternative is climbing over the fort knoll on steep grades. On the Church Street side, colonial history concentrates: St. George's Anglican Parish Church, restored to Victorian elegance; the Priory, a Greek-Revival-meets-Gingerbread mansion built as a Dominican presbytery in the late eighteenth century; York House, which served as Grenada's parliament until Hurricane Ivan wrecked it in 2004. The Immaculate Conception Cathedral faces what remains, rebuilt after the same storm that scattered so much of this city's fabric.

Grenada rarely takes direct hurricane hits, which made 2004 and 2005 devastating in a way the island was unprepared for. Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 destroyed or damaged ninety percent of the buildings on the island. St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, built in 1833, lost everything except its two gable walls and tower - the congregation now worships inside a modern interior wedged between those late-Georgian bookends. York House was abandoned rather than rebuilt. The reconstruction has been slow, hampered by global financial crises and then by COVID. But the Carenage still functions. The Christ of the Abyss statue still stands on the waterfront, a bronze presented by the city of Genoa in 1961 in gratitude for Grenadian rescue efforts during the sinking of the Italian liner Bianca C. Identical statues rest underwater off Portofino and Key Largo, but St. George's kept its version on dry land - perhaps wisely, given everything else the sea has thrown at this city.

St. George's is small enough to walk, though the hills will test your calves. The bus terminal is the island's nerve center, with minibuses radiating to every parish. Nearby, the National Cricket Stadium - rebuilt after the hurricane - hosts West Indies test matches during the drier months from November through May. Next door, Kirani James Stadium, renamed in 2017 for the Grenadian sprinter who won Olympic gold in the 400 meters at London 2012, hosts football and athletics. The real spectacle arrives in August, when Spicemas - Grenada's carnival - takes over. The final parades are less procession than organized chaos: jab-jabbers daubed in tar and motor oil embrace every bystander they can catch. Wear your oldest clothes, or better yet, nothing you intend to wear again. It is a city that has been fought over, blown apart, and rebuilt more than once, and it celebrates with the abandon of a place that knows nothing is permanent.