In addition to the hiatoric district of the island´s main town Cruz Bay and the petroglyphs, there are several other notable sites at which to explore St. John´s past stretching back more than three centuries to its settlement by Danish planters from St. Thomas who named the island St. Jan. These are the ruins of sugar plantations – the only ones left of the more than 100 which existed on the island in the 18th century – and part of the national park. The best known is the Annaberg Sugar Plantation (above) on the north coast, a 20-minute drive from Cruz Bay; here in addition to various ruins of the plantation house and outbuildings you´ll find exhibits explaining the sugar production process as well as the lives and times of both planters and the slaves who greatly outnumbered them. Also on the north coast near the eponymous bay, at Cinnamon Bay Plantation you can see the former plantation house as well as servants quarters, various buildings devoted to a sugarcane storage and processing, and a pair of small cemeteries. A another which is closer to Cruz Bay is Catherineburg, just ten minutes away. Near Coral Bay, meanwhile, similar ruins can be found at Estate Carolina (which was the first to be established, in 1718), and the Josie Gut Sugar Estate (established more than a century later, in 1820).
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