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Immediately on the north side of the Swing Bridge is the Marine Terminal , housed inside the beautifully restored former Belize City Fire Station of 1923. The terminal is the departure point for boats to the northern cayes, and is also home to a couple of superbly designed new museums (both Mon-Sat 8am-4.30pm; US$2 for a combined ticket). Downstairs, the Coastal Zone Museum contains fascinating displays and explanations of reef ecology, the highlight being a 3-D model of the entire reef system, including the cayes and atolls; upstairs, the Maritime Museum exhibits an amazing collection of models and documents relating to Belize's seafaring heritage. Opposite the Marine Terminal is the vast wooden Paslow Building , which houses the post office on the ground floor. A block east of the Marine Terminal, at 91 North Front St, The Image Factory (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm; free but donations welcome) hosts Belize's hottest contemporary artists. The gallery puts on outstanding, often provocative exhibitions and you often get a chance to chat to the artists themselves. Continuing east, past the "temporary" market, which often has a greater variety of produce than the official market south of the Swing Bridge, you'll pass the "tourism village" an expensive new harbourside shopping mall, presenting an ersatz view of Belizean culture to hordes of cruise ship passengers. The tip of the north shore is marked by a small park and the Bliss Lighthouse , a memorial to Baron Bliss. Walking around the shoreline, you pass the Fort George hotel and Memorial Park , which honours the Belizean dead of World War I. In this area you'll find several well-preserved colonial mansions - many of the finest have now been taken over by embassies and upmarket hotels. Facing the park at 2 South Park St, the National Handicrafts Center (Mon-Fri 8am-5pm), sells high-quality Belizean crafts at fair prices. The Fort George area is also home to two of Belize's foremost conservation organizations: the Belize Audubon Society (Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm) at 12 Fort St, which manages several of the country's wildlife reserves, and the Programme for Belize (Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm) at 1 Eyre St, which manages the Rio Bravo Conservation Area - both have bookshops selling useful wildlife guides and are worth a visit to pick up news on their latest conservation efforts. A little to the north, at the corner of Hutson Street and Gabourel Lane a block from the sea, is the US Embassy , a superb "colonial" building which was actually constructed in New England in the nineteenth century and then shipped to Belize. Just beyond here, in front of the Central Bank building, the former colonial prison has undergone an elegant conversion to the splendid Museum of Belize, Belize City (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; US$5; www.museumofbelize.org ), with interesting displays of the city's history on the ground floor and a stunning, priceless collection of Maya art and artefacts upstairs.
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