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A good dinner on a veranda is one of the Caribbean’s great pleasures; the warm night air and a view through palm trees to the beach and sea is probably the classic setting. Not this time, though. In Charlotte Amalie in St Thomas I found myself looking out over the middle of a town. But then this veranda, at the Hotel 1829, dates from the time that St Thomas was the most successful port in the Caribbean. The merchants liked to have a prospect of the ships at anchor.

Unlike most Caribbean islands St Thomas was never a plantation island. Instead, life has always been centred on its superb harbour. It has been variously a careening (hull-cleaning) bay, a pirate haven, a Danish freeport, slave-market, a gun-running centre, steamship coaling station, US Naval Base and latterly a major cruise ship port. In its early days the settlement went by the admirably forthright name of Tap Hus, which simply means ‘pub’, but gradually, as transhipment became its stock in trade, serious warehouses clamoured on the waterfront and the wealthy merchants built their houses, tropical Danish style, on the hills above.

The United States Virgin Islands are less well known in the UK than their less populous British counterparts, but if you want a week on land after cruising Sir Francis Drake Channel, then the USVI are right next door and so you might throw them into the bargain.

They are different, that’s for sure. St Thomas is busy and built up. And despite the fact that they drive on the left, it is distinctly American - with drive-in burger stores and mountain-bike police patrols. The hills between the hotels, which are tucked into every bay, are thick with villas and private homes, some of them extremely comfortable - the Clinton family has visited twice in recent years. With such a large ‘mainlander’ community (mainland USA, that is) on the island there are good restaurants and bars, with jazz as entertainment. And there’s the shopping of course.

But really it is the three hills above Charlotte Amalie that distinguish the island. Here you will find some exquisite colonial houses. Red roofs, clapboard walls with white wooden trimmings and wrought iron verandas cluster among the steep stone alleys. It is easy to fall in love with the place. I found myself in the Haagensen House, perched on the hillside at the top of the 99 Steps (presently 103 as it happens). It has recently been restored to near its original 1830s state - large open rooms with louvres and wide doorways that catch a breeze, and period furniture, including Barbadian planters’ chairs with extendable arms to rest your legs, to take in the superb view. Inside there are reproductions of early works by Camille Pissarro. Unexpectedly, the Father of Impressionism was born in St Thomas and lived here as a young man.

It’s strange how even construction techniques in the tropics can seem exotic. My favourite in the USVI are the rubblestone walls, which are neatly patterned and colourful affairs, with chips of red and blue chips interlaced in the brick and cement. A necessity turned to artistry, no doubt. The best examples of this are in fact in St John, St Thomas’s (shy, younger) sister island, where they can be seen in the town and in the old plantation buildings - like St Croix (the other major US Virgin Island), St John has a more traditional past. Once, its steep slopes were terraced to the heights with sugar cane, but since the fifties (courtesy of the Rockefeller and the Jackson Hole Preserve corporation) much of it has been allowed to return to its natural forested state as a National Park. Now, just four miles and a world away from the larger island, St John is one of the cheeriest and most charming islands in the Caribbean. The bright lights of St Thomas make a lovely night time backdrop.

You may sense a certain reluctance to throw myself into the fray of the harbour itself. But there comes a time… I went to see it in action. Seaplanes thrummed, taking off for St Croix and Tortola; a cruise ship horn blew flatulently at the dock; ‘Hey buddy, wanna taxi?’ Downtown, in the venerable trading buildings, it is mercantile mayhem. But hey, this is America.

With some trepidation I walked Dronningens Gade, where cool air tumbles enticingly out of air-conditioned shops. Jewellery, perfumes, Nicole Miller, Donna Karan, all too much Tommy Hilfiger, galleries, plenty of tat, but some interesting things among it all. I bumped up a ‘barker’. Barkers pull vacillating cruise ship passengers in from the streets with promises of the best bargains:

‘Excuse me. LADIES!’ he was shouting ‘Right here for the best in jewellery, perfumes…!’

In a spare moment he turned to me: ‘Course it’s not like the really great days in the 80s. Had ten cruise ships a day then. An’ people not spendin’ like they used to, neither. Marilyn wasted this place.’

It’s true. And that was as far back as 1995. But things are probably finally looking up in St Thomas. With a double index-finger point he said: ‘Now, you have a great day!’ and went into his routine.

To me it all seems a little rum (which also comes at duty-free prices as it happens) and so my antennae were wiggling uncontrollably. (Particularly at a trolley bus full of people chanting: Shop-ping! Shop-ping! Shop-ping! Priceless.)

But then I began to dredge the history of St Thomas that settled in my mind years ago. It was ever thus. A century and a half ago there was Anthony Trollope, commissioned by the Royal Mail to assess postal services in the Caribbean. ‘It is an emporium,’ he wrote, ‘a depot for cigars, light dresses, brandy boots and Eau de Cologne. He didn’t like it much. He thought the hottest and unhealthiest place in a hot and unhealthy region.

And then, in the early 1770s, there was Alexander Hamilton, whose face appears on the US$10 bill. He lived here as a young man before heading north and helping to write the US Constitution. Hamilton’s comment was: ‘Gold moved through the streets in wheelbarrows…’

Even 300 years it was the same. In 1701, a certain Pere Labat, Jesuit Priest, island-hopping gastronome, occasional spy and general Caribbean busybody visited after a narrow escape from pirates: ‘they raise young kids which are excellent and fowl of all kind in quantities... privateers send their prizes to be sold… the richest Indian silks and muslins, precious stones and gold coins of Asia… much riches in specie or in bars. All this trade fills the stores with merchandise and makes St Thomas a very rich island.’

You have to hand it to a place that follows a vision with such determination.

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