Lihue Tourist Attractions

Located in a building dating from 1924, which originally housed Kauai Public Library, the museum offers a comprehensive account of Kauai's history and culture. Visitors can learn about its geology, flora, ethnology and history. Kauai's main events are portrayed - its evolution, its discovery by James Cook in 1778, the attempted Russian expansion on the island after 1815, the arrival of the missionaries and the changes which they effected, life on a plantation during the 19th c. and the immigration of different ethnic groups from Europe and Asia.A model of an old Hawaiian village is displayed on the ground floor, as well as photographs of Kauai from the turn of the century, furniture which belonged to missionaries and examples of Kauai's natural history. Exhibits on display upstairs include photographs of missionaries and a large shell collection.An aerial film of Kauai's more inaccessible areas, above all the Na Pali Coast and the interior of the Waimea Canyon, is shown at regular intervals - it is a pity that it does not last longer than six minutes. The visitor is finally introduced to the world of the legendary Menehune.

Grove Farm began life in 1864 as a sugar plantation run by George Wilcox. The main building, having been enlarged several times, now serves as a museum and can be visited - together with the remaining huts, workplaces and flower and vegetable gardens - during a two-hour tour. Grove Farm remains as an example of the age when Kauai had sugar plantations and, because it has not been worked for a long time, it retains an authentic atmosphere. The different buildings, as well as the furnishings and the surrounding land, belong to what is one of the oldest, almost unchanged sugar plantations. Visiting here, the tourist is confronted by a living piece of Kauai's past, which can hardly be found anywhere else on the islands.

Hawaii's oldest Protestant church was built in 1885. A hurricane destroyed it in 1982, but it has been faithfully rebuilt. Its nave is shaped like the ship in which German immigrants and missionaries came to Kauai.Nearby lies a sugar-mill.