Downtown Honolulu is
surprisingly small, set back a
little from the sea and centering
around a spacious plaza on King
Street that includes
Iolani
Palace and the
state
capitol . The palace was built
for King David Kalakaua in 1882,
but, apart from its
koa
-hardwood floors, contains little
that is distinctively Hawaiian
(Tues-Sat 9am-2.15pm; $15). Across
the road is a flower-bedecked,
gilt statue of Kamehameha the
Great.
To reach the nearby ocean,
pedestrians have to negotiate
fearsome traffic. Although the sea
may be turquoise, the shorefront
is concrete, not beach, and you
can't wander along it for any
distance due to excessive recent
construction works. The Aloha
Tower on Pier 9 used to be the
city's tallest building; the area
around its base has been converted
into an expensive shopping and
dining mall, fronting onto the
city docks. The view from the top
of the tower is little short of
ugly, but is good for orientation
(daily: April-Sept 9am-7.30pm;
Oct-March 9am-7pm; free). The Hawaii
Maritime Center (daily
8.30am-5pm; $7.50), just east of
Aloha Tower, documents Hawaii's
seafaring past in superb detail,
from ancient migrations through to
white contact, nineteenth-century
trade and twentieth-century
cruises. A stunning film from 1922
(with Clara Bow in a bit part)
shows the true-life drama of
whaling, and there's a wall of
gigantic historic surfboards. In
the adjacent dock are the fully
rigged four-master Falls of
Clyde and the replica
Polynesian canoe Hokulea ,
whose voyages to Tahiti and New
Zealand over the last two decades
have inspired tremendous interest
in traditional methods of
navigation.
Though few tourists seem to
know about it, Honolulu residents
take great pride in the stunning
fine art on display at the Academy
of Arts , half a mile east of
the capitol at 900 S Beretania St
(Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 1-5pm;
$5). Highlights of the superb
collection of paintings include
Van Gogh's Wheat Field ,
Gauguin's Two Nudes on a
Tahitian Beach and one of
Monet's Water Lilies . The
Academy also holds some
fascinating depictions of Hawaii
by visiting artists, including a
pencil sketch of Waikiki drawn in
1838, and vivid, stylized studies
of Maui's Iao Valley and Hana
coast by Georgia O'Keeffe, plus
magnifi-cent ancient Chinese
ceramics and bronzes.
