Best Things to Do in Dakar

Dakar rewards travellers who balance its profound historical sites in the south with the fishing beaches, surf breaks and island pirogues of the northern and western coastline. Here are the ten experiences that define the Senegalese capital.

1. Cross by ferry to UNESCO-listed Île de Gorée. Ride the twenty-minute harbour chaloupe from Plateau to walk car-free sandy lanes draped in bougainvillea, visit the House of Slaves (Maison des Esclaves) and climb the basalt plateau of Castel.
2. Tour the Museum of Black Civilisations (Musée des Civilisations Noires). Explore four floors of African archaeology, royal bronzes, masks and contemporary pan-African installations inside a monumental circular rotunda inspired by southern Senegalese impluvium architecture.
3. Climb to the African Renaissance Monument and Mamelles Lighthouse. Stand below the 49-metre bronze statue crowning one of Dakar's twin volcanic hills, then watch the sun drop into the Atlantic from the 1894 lighthouse on the neighbouring peak.
4. Take a pirogue to car-free Ngor Island (Île de Ngor). Cross the narrow 400-metre channel in a wooden boat to wander stone alleys painted with street art, swim in sheltered coves and eat grilled barracuda by the water.
5. Watch the late-afternoon fishing landing at Soumbédioune. Stand above the crescent beach on the Corniche Ouest as scores of brightly painted wooden pirogues ride the Atlantic swell ashore with the daily catch beside the artisan craft village.
6. Surf or watch the waves at Plage du Virage and Les Almadies. Rent a board on the gentle sandy break at Virage or eat fresh sea urchins and grilled fish on the rocky westernmost point of continental Africa at Pointe des Almadies.
7. Visit the IFAN Museum of African Arts on Place Soweto. Inspect one of West Africa's oldest ethnographic collections of ceremonial masks, carved doors and textiles in a quiet leafy square in Plateau.
8. Admire the Grand Mosque of Dakar and Cathedral of African Remembrance. See Moroccan-style carved stucco and a soaring 67-metre minaret at the edge of Medina, paired with the Sudanic-Byzantine dome of the 1936 cathedral on Boulevard de la République.
9. Savour national dish thiéboudienne at lunchtime. Eat traditional herb-stuffed grouper and red or white broken rice simmered with cassava, cabbage, carrot and dried conch.
10. Half-day excursion to Lac Rose (Lake Retba). Travel 35 km northeast to the hyper-saline coastal lagoon where salt harvesters work from wooden boats just behind the Atlantic sand dunes.