California Lighthouse

Smith Blvd. (Highway 1A/B) north
Aruba
Aruba
Aruba

Type: Landmark
Hours: Daily

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The California Lighthouse, a stone lighthouse, was designed by a French architect in 1910 and then constructed on Aruba between 1914 and 1916. It’s named after the S.S. California, a wooden-hulled barquentine (or barkentine, a three- to five-masted sailing ship) that sank near shore more than a century ago. The coral-encrusted wreck is popular among underwater photographers, but rough seas and strong currents make it difficult to reach and advisable only for advanced divers on a calm day.

You can’t go inside the lighthouse, but stand on the plateau and look out over the sea, down the coast at a string of fabulous beaches, and across the sand dunes to the irrigated greens of Tierra del Sol Golf Course. Plan to be at the foot of the lighthouse late in the afternoon for a beautiful view of the sun setting to the west. You can grab a pizza from 3 until 6 pm at La Trattoria El Farro Blanco, the nearby Italian restaurant. The trattoria serves dinner after six.

The prestigious residential/vacation golfing neighborhood of Tierra del Sol is just south and east of the lighthouse. Golfers should consider staying at the resort here or signing up for tee times on the championship course. Farther south, the windward east coast turns into a wild countryside called the cunucu. You’ll need a four-wheel-drive vehicle to travel some of the roughest dirt roads and paths.

Directions: From Santa Anna Church in Noord, take Smith Blvd (Highway 1A/B) north, past the high-rise hotels and the village of Malmok, to an elevated stretch of land on the far north end of the island. This isolated area is known by its Caiquetio name, Hudishibana, but most people call it the California Dunes because of the mounds of white sand that surround the focal point, the California Lighthouse.