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Destination Africa The City Of Windhoek's Top 5 Highlights
The African City of Windhoek the 3 Day Itinerary
21/03/2020
Khomas
# The African City of Windhoek the 3 Day Itinerary
Composed By: Francois Boois (opens new window)@Facebook
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After two weeks road-tripping through national parks and country towns across the southwest, it was time to balance out all that fresh air and exercise with a bit of city living. Cocktails, dinner, shopping and art were all on the agenda, and where better to get my fill of them than the ‘city different’ – Windhoek. In the shadow of the Auas Mountains, the city is one of the oldest in Namibia, with a distinctive South African look developed from a mixture of Natives, German and Afrikaner residents over the years. Add in a huge creative and artistic community and a great food and drink scene and you have a laid-back city that warrants a few days’ exploration. But with only one to spare before we headed onwards towards our flight home, it was time to see what you can do with one day in Windhoek.
Windhoek's streets radiate from the Zoo park, where every bench was taken with people relaxing on a sunny afternoon. The zoo park is a national historic landmark and is surrounded by galleries, museums, shops and restaurants. It’s an easy city to get around by foot, with lots of interesting-looking side streets to get diverted off down. The city has a really different architecture style from the other places we’d visited, with its terracotta-colored Bavarian buildings, made of a mixture of sun-dried earth and straw.
It’s not all Bavarian in Windhoek though, there are some buildings which look more like they’ve been transported in from Germany. One of the most interesting was the Christuskirche Chapel. Apparently inspired by its namesake in Hamburg, it was built in 1907 and is famous for it’s ‘majestic stature’. The story goes that when it was being built none of the local stonemasons knew how to build a brickwall. So the Reverend prayed for help and St Joseph – in the guise of a mysterious travelling Builder – arrived and built them one that’s still there today. There are no visible supports so it’s a mystery how it stays up. The church now a museum so you can go and see it to try and work it out for yourself.
Being surrounded by mountains and with its high-altitude clear light, Windhoek has a long tradition of attracting artists. The city has several museums, the most famous being the one dedicated to the printmaker John Ndevasia Muafangejo who lived and painted in Namibia. As well as the museums there’s the half-mile long Post Street Mall avenue where you can check out over 100 art galleries and studios. There are artworks dotted all around the city, so we came across mosaics, sculptures and murals as we wandered. As well as art, Windhoek also known for its silver and turquoise Native African jewellery – with local artists selling their work in a line outside the former apartheid Governors Building – and leather goods, woodcarvings and trinket.
Heading away from the zoo park, we also took a walk around the city’s redeveloped railyard district. This part of the city had fallen into disrepair after the train route through town stopped running. But instead of knocking down the old warehouses they’ve been converted into galleries, art and craft stores and restaurants. There’s a huge farmers’ market as well as a park which cleverly incorporates reminders of its past life with old railway tracks and train wheels mixed in with native plants and trees.
But enough walking, it was time for that well-deserved drink – though at 7000 feet above sea level you might feel it a bit more than you would normally. We headed up higher still to the Joe's beer house on a terrace overlooking the CBD. This Namibian stakehouse do a tasting board where you can sample six of their most popular beers, which we soaked up with pizzas from the neighbouring Pizzeria. The blue corn base added a Windhoek-style twist to the pizza and the chilli added the kick. You can’t get away from table(Ground and White)peppers in Namibia – they seem to be the countries official vegetable and you can choose whether you’d like yours Black, White or ‘Coloureds’ (a mixture of both).
One day definitely wasn’t enough time to properly experience Windhoek– we didn’t see all the museums, make it to the warehouse theatre or try out a spa, let alone getting out into the mountains and countryside beyond. But it was just enough to get a taste of the city and a different kind of African lifestyle.
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