Noord, Aruba: The Town Behind the Beaches

Noord, Aruba, is where Ghislaine lives, where our guests buy their groceries, and where most of the island’s best dinners are cooked. It never appears in the brochures because it has no beach. It has everything else. If you are staying anywhere on the northwest coast, this is the town behind your vacation, so here is how it works.

Where is Noord Aruba?

Noord is one of the island’s eight districts and covers the whole northwest corner: from the inland town center out to Palm Beach, Malmok, Arashi and the California Lighthouse on the coast, and up to the north shore cliffs. When people say “Noord” they usually mean the town itself, a sprawl of low houses, snack bars, churches and cunucu restaurants about five minutes inland from the high rise hotels.

All four of our homes are in the district. Ocean View 2BR is on the Palm Beach strip, the two Hideout suites are near Eagle Beach on its southern edge, and Oasis Hideaway is in Gold Coast, a gated community between Noord town and the Malmok beaches.

Drive times from Noord town

From the Super Food Plaza roundabout, which is the center of everything:

• Palm Beach: 5 minutes
• Eagle Beach: 7 minutes
• Arashi and the California Lighthouse: 10 minutes
• Alto Vista chapel: 8 minutes, the last part unpaved
• Oranjestad: 12 minutes
• Airport: 20 minutes
• Mangel Halto: 25 minutes
• Arikok visitor center: 30 minutes
• Baby Beach: 45 minutes

Noord is the reason we tell every guest outside the Palm Beach strip to rent a car; the car guide explains the per home version.

Super Food Plaza

The big Dutch style supermarket on the main road is where the island shops. A real bakery with bread and Dutch pastries, a cheese counter, fresh fish on good days, a long wine aisle, a pharmacy, a hardware section and a food court. Prices are higher than the US for anything imported, which is most things, and normal for the Caribbean. Buying a week of breakfasts, lunches and two dinners here instead of eating out is the single biggest saving a rental guest can make; the is Aruba expensive guide does the math.

It opens early and closes in the evening, seven days a week, though hours shorten on Sundays and holidays, so check before a late run. There is a smaller Super Food near Palm Beach and a Ling & Sons on the way to Oranjestad if you are coming from the airport.

Pastechi House and the snack bars

The Aruban breakfast is a pastechi, a fried half moon pastry filled with cheese, chicken, beef or tuna. Pastechi House on Caya Betico Croes in the town center has sold them through a window for decades; you will queue behind people in work uniforms at 7:30 am and pay a couple of dollars each. Order the kaas (cheese) first.

Every road in Noord has a snack bar, including the ones at the gas stations, and the food trucks open after 7 pm along the main roads with churrasco, chicken and batidos. The row near the Super Food roundabout is the easiest to find.

The cunucu restaurants

Cunucu is Papiamento for countryside, and the old farmhouses around Noord are the island’s serious restaurants. Papiamento, in a 19th century house with tables around a pool, is where Arubans go for an anniversary. The Old Cunucu House and Gasparito do the full local menu: keshi yena, stoba, fresh fish with creole sauce, funchi and pan bati. Madame Janette and Wacky Wahoo’s are on the same roads and fill every night. All are within ten minutes of our homes, all need a reservation in high season. Our restaurant list and where locals eat go through them.

Santa Ana church

The yellow church in the center of town is the parish of Noord, founded in the 1770s, with a carved oak altar brought from the Netherlands in the 19th century that is worth five minutes even if churches are not your thing. Sunday morning mass is in Papiamento and the square outside is where the town meets. The original altar cross from Alto Vista is kept here.

Alto Vista chapel

Drive north out of town on the unpaved road lined with white crosses and you reach the small yellow chapel on the hill above the north coast. The first church on Aruba was built on this spot in 1750 by a Venezuelan missionary; the current chapel dates from 1952 and is still used. It is quiet, windy and free, with a view over the whole north shore. Go in the late afternoon and continue to the California Lighthouse for sunset; the two are ten minutes apart. The track is fine for a normal car if you take it slowly.

Everyday Noord

What else is here, because you will need it: the island’s main pharmacy chain, a couple of clinics, hardware stores, car rental yards that deliver to the door, the Butterfly Farm on the coast road, and the Bubali bird sanctuary wetlands between town and Eagle Beach, where herons and egrets gather at dusk. Noord also has the island’s biggest concentration of villa rentals, mostly inland on the big flat plots behind the town; they are good value with two cars and a plan, and a mistake without.

What Noord is not

It is not walkable to any beach. It is not pretty in the postcard sense; it is a working Aruban town with potholes and speed bumps and goats on the side roads. It is not quiet at the roundabout on a Friday evening. All of that is why the food is honest and the prices are local, and why, after a day on Eagle Beach, we think it is the best place on the island to come home to.

Stay nearby

Every one of our homes is in the Noord district with Super Food Plaza, the cunucu restaurants and the beaches within ten minutes. Oasis Hideaway in Gold Coast is the closest to the town center and to Arashi, with a private pool. Ocean View 2BR sits on the Palm Beach sand. Hideout Dream Big Suite and Hideout Happiness Suite are near Eagle Beach, adults only. See them at /stays/.

Questions people ask

Where is Noord in Aruba?

Noord is the district in the northwest of the island, directly inland from Palm Beach, Eagle Beach and Malmok. The town center is about five minutes by car from the high rise hotels and ten from Oranjestad.

Is Noord a good place to stay in Aruba?

Yes if you have a car and want space, a pool and local prices. The beaches are five to ten minutes away. Without a car it is a poor choice; nothing in the district is on foot except the supermarket and a few snack bars.

What is there to do in Noord Aruba?

Eat at the cunucu house restaurants, visit the Santa Ana church and Alto Vista chapel, shop at Super Food Plaza, and use it as the base for Arashi, the California Lighthouse and both main beaches.

Is there a supermarket in Noord?

Super Food Plaza is the biggest supermarket on the island, with a bakery, cheese counter, wine aisle and pharmacy. Our guests shop there on the first morning; it is five to ten minutes from each of our homes.