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The largest settlement of the southwest coast, SOUFRIERE is still a quiet place, charming in its lack of polish and filled with a melange of architectural styles ranging from slapped-together wooden fishing huts to modern cement blocks. Some buildings, particularly those around the town square, recall the ornate facades of French colonial days. Most visitors just come for the day and do a quick tour of the beaches, the Sulphur Springs and the mineral baths, all fine attractions in themselves, but very touristy and devoid of local presence or a true taste of St Lucia's southwest coast. Save time to explore the town itself so you don't make the same mistake. Soufriere's tourist office (Mon-Fri 8am-4pm, Sat 8am-noon), on the waterfront and across from the main pier, is a handy source of local information - staff can also direct you to members of the tourism department's helpful guide corps who give walking tours of the town. The town is small enough to explore on foot, and the abundance of jammed one-way streets and the lack of parking render vehicles inadvisable. You can park at the pretty waterfront , a jumble of piers and boat slips where local fishing craft and tourist party boats dock, and where you'll find a small fish market in the blue building behind the Old Courthouse Restaurant . A well-maintained walkway edges the northern waterfront, where ornate streetlamps, benches and poinciana trees make for a pleasant evening stroll. At its southern end lies a small crafts centre (Mon-Sat 9am-4pm), where local artisans sell anything from carvings to straw hats at a reasonable price. A block inland, hemmed in by Bridge and Church streets is the big and grassy town square , laid out by Soufriere's settlers in the eighteenth century and, during the French Revolution, the scene of numerous executions by guillotine. It's a peaceful and shady space today, bordered by businesses and homes built in the classic French colonial style with second-floor balconies and intricate decorative woodwork. Dominating the east end of the square is the Lady of Assumption Church , built in 1953 on the site of several older churches destroyed by earthquakes and fire. Soufriere has what might be viewed as bad weather karma: the town was pummelled by hurricanes in 1780, 1817, 1831, 1898 and 1980, and by an earthquake in 1839, while in 1955 half the town was razed to the ground by a huge fire.
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