Montego Bay
|
DoctorsCaveBeach.jpeg
Montego Bay is a city in Jamaica that also contains Jamaica's largest airport, Sangster International Airport.
Montego Bay is known for its duty free shopping and cruise line terminal at its Free Port on a beautiful peninsula jutting into the bay. The bay is also surrounded by picturesque low mountains. The whole island of Jamaica is quite hilly, culminating on the other side of the island near Kingston in the 6000'+ Blue Mountains, known for their coffees which many say are the world's best.
Montego Bay is second in population to Kingston with about 120,000 people and lies in St. James Parish on the northeast coast of the island. Air Jamaica and several American and British airlines run their Caribbean hub in "MoBay" connecting the island with the US, England, Germany, and recently Canada with flights to Toronto. The southern U.S. cities of Houston, Atlanta, Tampa, and Miami are reached by nonstop flights in less than three hours.
"Montego Bay"'s name is believed to have originated in a corruption of the Spanish word "manteca" (butter or lard). The island's first couple of centuries were as a Crown Colony of Spain before Oliver Cromwell's Caribbean adventurers drove them off to Cuba and Hispaniola and claimed it for England.
Today the city is known for its large regional hospital (Cornwall General), port facilities, second homes for numerous upper class Jamaicans from Kingston as well as Americans and Europeans, fine restaurants, and shopping opportunities. Surrounding coast land is occupied by numerous tourist resorts, some newly built, some occupying the grounds of old Sugar Cane plantations with some of the original buildings and mill-works still standing. The most famous of these are the "White Witch's" Rose Hall and Tryall - both of which now sport world-class golf courses.de:Montego Bay nl:Montego Bay