What's a good 3-day itinerary for Nassau?

September in Nassau means 26°C mornings that feel closer to 31°C by noon, and the humidity sits around 80%. Keep Day 1 slow. The taxi from Lynden Pindling International Airport to Bay Street costs a flat $38, no meter. Skip the rental car. If a cruise ship is docked, Bay Street crowds peak between 10am and 3pm. Head to Fort Charlotte by 9am, when the limestone ramparts still hold overnight cool. The fort dates to 1789, built by Lord Dunmore, and it never fired a shot in anger. The dry moat smells of wet stone and sea grape. Walk east along West Bay Street to the Straw Market by 11am. Woven sisal bags run $15 to $40, and the first price quoted is an opening bid. By noon, you want Arawak Cay. This is the Fish Fry, a row of open-air shacks where Bahamians eat lunch. Order cracked conch at any stand for about $15, with a Kalik beer for $5. The batter runs thin and salty. The conch stays tender at the busier stalls.

Walk 15 minutes southeast to the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas on West Hill Street. The gallery opened in 2003 inside a restored 1860s colonial villa, and the permanent collection runs heavy on Junkanoo costume art and Amos Ferguson's flat, bright house-paint canvases. Admission is $10 for adults. By 3pm, head south to Christ Church Cathedral on George Street, founded in 1670 and still the seat of the Anglican diocese. The interior is dim and cool, with overhead fans clicking and the wooden pews worn smooth by three centuries of Sunday mornings. Dinner at Café Matisse by 7pm. The restaurant sits on Bank Lane, a quiet side street off Bay Street, and the yellowtail snapper runs about $42. Day 2 opens with a 20-minute walk or $2 jitney ride across the Paradise Island bridge. The French Cloisters sit at the eastern end of the island. These are 14th-century Augustinian monastery stones shipped from France by William Randolph Hearst, then reassembled here in the 1960s by Huntington Hartford. Get there by 9am for the morning light through the columns.

The Versailles Gardens sit below the Cloisters, free and unhurried at 9:30am. Bronze statues face Nassau Harbour across a clipped lawn. By 11am, take a $15 taxi west to Cable Beach, a 3-kilometre sand strip along the north shore. The water in September is warm enough to stay in without noticing time pass, and the sand is fine-grained, almost powdery. A grouper sandwich from one of the beach bars runs about $20. After the beach, a 10-minute taxi reaches Ardastra Gardens on Chippingham Road. The gardens opened in 1982, and the marching flamingo show tends to run around 2pm. Caribbean flamingos walk in formation while a handler calls commands. Strange and endearing. The Caribbean pine canopy overhead cuts the worst of the afternoon sun. Dinner back downtown at Graycliff on West Hill Street, inside a Georgian mansion from the 1740s. The wine cellar holds over 250,000 bottles. Rack of lamb, $55.

Day 3 starts at Government House on Duke Street at 9am. The pink-and-white colonial building sits on Nassau's highest ground, about 30 metres above sea level, with views north over the harbour. Walk 10 minutes downhill to the Queen's Staircase, 66 steps carved from solid limestone by enslaved people in the late 1790s. The walls are damp and green with moss, and the fig trees overhead block most of the sky. By 11:30am, head to Potter's Cay Dock under the Paradise Island bridge. This is where mailboats leave for the Out Islands, and the conch vendors along the dock serve scorched conch for $12 a plate. They score the raw conch, squeeze lime and scotch bonnet pepper over it, then sear it on a flat griddle. The smell of charred citrus and hot pepper carries 20 metres. After lunch, Nassau Public Library on Shirley Street is a 10-minute walk south. The octagonal building served as a colonial prison before it held books, and the original cells are still visible upstairs.

Spend the afternoon at Junkanoo Beach, a 5-minute walk west of Bay Street. This is the local beach, not the resort strip, and it fills up after 3pm when downtown workers arrive. St. Francis Xavier Cathedral on West Street is on the walk back, built in 1886 and still holding regular services. For a last dinner, The Poop Deck on East Bay Street does grilled Nassau grouper for $35, and the open-air deck looks across the harbour. About 15 kilometres of walking over three days, with taxis covering another 20 between zones. Mind you, $1 USD equals $1 BSD, so you'll never fumble the conversion. Tips run 15% at sit-down restaurants.