Main Street is Georgetown at its most graceful — a wide, tree-lined avenue running through the heart of the capital, where colonial-era timber mansions sit behind white picket fences beneath flamboyant and saman trees. Built when Georgetown was called the "Garden City of the Caribbean," the avenue still carries the elegance of the nineteenth century into the bustle of a booming modern capital.
Walk it slowly. At one end stands the Cenotaph and the stately State House, official residence of the President, set in its own gardens. Along the way you pass Moray House, the Guyana National Museum nearby, grand hotels like the Pegasus corridor, and some of the finest surviving examples of Demerara-shuttered wooden architecture in the Americas — buildings crafted entirely of greenheart timber, built to breathe in the tropical heat.
By day the avenue hums with office workers, vendors selling fresh coconut water and school children in bright uniforms; by dusk the street lamps come on beneath the trees and Main Street becomes one of the loveliest evening strolls in the capital. It is the natural starting point for any walking tour of Georgetown — St George's Cathedral, the Promenade Gardens and Stabroek Market are all within easy reach.
