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HOLETOWN is the third-largest town in Barbados - a busy, modern hub for the local tourist industry, if somewhat lacking in character. All west coast buses run through it, and the main highway is lined with fast-food restaurants, souvenir shops, banks and grocery stores. Just before you reach the centre, Sunset Crest shopping centre on the east side of the highway has plenty of places where you can pick up souvenirs. There are more shopping options once you reach Holetown itself, with a dozen reproduction chattel houses in the chattel house village (also alongside the highway) selling gifts and the like, and the nearby West Coast Mall offering equally good spending opportunities. On the northern edge of town, 1st and 2nd streets, lined with trendy restaurants, lead down to the sea. Ten minutes' walk north of the centre of Holetown is St James's Parish Church , one of the most attractive on the island. It is also the oldest religious site in Barbados - the original wooden church was built here in 1628. The present church is a small, graceful building, with thick stone walls, and two columns supporting the stone chancel arch that divides the nave from the choir. There are the usual marble funerary monuments on the walls, while more modern works of art include a colourful biblical triptych by Ethiopian painter Alemayehu Bizumeh and bronze bas-reliefs of St James and St Mary by Czech sculptor George Kveton. A couple of miles inland from Holetown is the informative Portvale Sugar Museum , signposted off Highway 2A just north of the main roundabout (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; B$15). The small museum is the brainchild of Frank Hutson, a former sugar worker who rescued a load of rusting sugar-mill machinery, cleaned it up and incorporated it into the museum, adding captions, maps and photos explaining the role of sugar on the island since its introduction in the 1640s. Between February and June you can tour the adjacent sugar factory and view the full production process, from the loading and grinding of the cane to the crystallization of the brown sugar.
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