Makola Market, Kente at the Arts Centre, Osu and Labadi Beach

Once you have explored the coastal monuments of High Street and Jamestown, the everyday energy of Accra unfolds in its fabric markets, artisan workshops, leafy diplomatic suburbs and palm-lined Atlantic beaches to the east.

The Centre for National Culture (Arts Centre) and Makola Market

Directly beside Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park sits the Centre for National Culture, universally known in Accra as the Arts Centre. Under a labyrinth of timber-roofed arcades, weavers sit at narrow foot-pedalled looms producing long strips of cotton and rayon kente cloth (both geometric royal Ashanti weaves from Bonwire and intricate symbolic Ewe weaves from the Volta Region), alongside woodcarvers shaping Ashanti stools and Akuaba fertility figures, brass smiths and drum makers. Bargain with good humour and take your time inspecting the weave weight. Fifteen minutes north on Kojo Thompson Road lies Makola Market, the commercial beating heart of the city since 1924, where female market queens preside over narrow lanes of Ghanaian wax-print textiles, recycled glass Krobo beads, unrefined northern shea butter and dried spices.

W.E.B. Du Bois Centre, Osu (Oxford Street) and Labone

Riding ten minutes east by Uber or Bolt brings you into the residential belt of Osu, Labone and Cantonments. Along Cantonments Road in Osu (nicknamed Oxford Street), street-side roasted plantain (kelewele) vendors share the pavement with craft boutiques, contemporary galleries and rooftop lounges, while quieter adjacent streets in Labone host garden bistros and speciality coffee roasters. Just north on First Circular Road in Cantonments, do not miss the shaded W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture, where the co-founder of the NAACP lived from 1961 until his death in 1963 at age 95.

Labadi (La) Beach and Teshie Fantasy Coffins

Follow the coast road east from Osu past Christiansborg (Osu) Castle to Labadi Pleasure Beach (La Beach), Accra's liveliest stretch of golden sand, where horse riders gallop along the tideline and open-air beach bars host live highlife drumming and reggae. A further fifteen minutes east in Teshie and Nungua, master carpenters carve Ga fantasy coffins (abebuu adekai) shaped like giant cocoa pods, chillies, aeroplanes, cameras and red snappers to celebrate the profession of the deceased.