Richard Davies, a British traveller in the mid-nineteenth century, wrote of the city: "There is much to be said for Belize, for in its way it was one of the prettiest ports at which we touched, and its cleanliness and order & were in great contrast to the ports we visited later as to make them most remarkable."

Most of the features that elicited this praise have now gone, but several of the city's wooden colonial buildings have been saved as heritage showpieces, sometimes as museums or galleries, more often by conversion into a hotel or restaurant. Yet even in cases where the decay is too advanced for the balconies and carved railings to be restored, the old wooden structures remain more pleasing than the concrete blocks that have replaced so many of them.

Before the construction of the first wooden bridge in the early 1800s, cattle were winched over the waterway that divides the city - hence the name Haulover Creek . The Swing Bridge , focal point of the city centre, was made in Liverpool and opened in 1923 - today it's the only manually operated swing bridge left in the Americas. Every day at 5.30am and 5.30pm the endless parade of vehicles and people is halted and the process of turning begins: using long poles inserted into a capstan, four men gradually lever the bridge around until it's pointing in the direction of the harbour mouth.