CFM Railway Station, Casa de Ferro, Fortress and the Baixa

Down at sea level beside the port of Maputo Bay, the rectangular grid of the Baixa preserves a concentrated collection of turn-of-the-century Portuguese railway architecture, military stone ramparts, botanical gardens and eccentric tropical modernism. Start in the morning at Praça dos Trabalhadores and walk east toward Praça da Independência as the city climbs toward Polana.

CFM Central Railway Station (Estação do Caminho de Ferro)

Anchoring Praça dos Trabalhadores (around a monumental First World War statue of a woman taming a serpent), the CFM Central Railway Station is regularly ranked among the handsomest railway terminals in the world. Built between 1908 and 1910 by architects Alfredo Augusto Lisboa de Lima, Mario Veiga and Ferreira da Costa to serve the rail link to Pretoria, its mint-green and white neoclassical facade is crowned by a huge hemispherical copper dome forged in Johannesburg. Step through the wrought-iron entrance grilles onto the active concourse to see original teak ticket kiosks, cast-iron platform pillars, the historic Kulungwana contemporary art gallery and the CFM Railway Museum, where polished turn-of-the-century steam locomotives stand beside an old rail-side bar.

Fortaleza de Maputo, Mercado Central and historic Baixa

Walk ten minutes east along Rua de Timor Leste and Avenida Samora Machel to Praça 25 de Junho and the Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Maputo Fortress). Rebuilt in reddish stone in the 20th century on the site of an 18th-century Portuguese presidio, the low quadrangular fort holds bronze colonial statues removed after independence in 1975, early cannons, and the timber coffin of Ngungunhane, the last emperor of the Gaza Empire who resisted Portuguese rule in the 1890s. Just north on Avenida 25 de Setembro stands the 1901 Mercado Central (Baixa Market), where spice vendors stack pyramids of roasted cashews, bird's-eye piri-piri chillies and fresh tropical fruit.

Casa de Ferro, Tunduru Botanical Gardens and Cathedral

Climbing slightly up Avenida Samora Machel toward Praça da Independência brings you to three landmarks side by side. First, shade yourself inside the 1885 Jardim Tunduru Botanical Gardens, passing a carved stone arch and giant prehistoric cycads. At its northern corner gleams the Casa de Ferro (Iron House), designed by Gustave Eiffel's associates in Belgium in 1892 entirely from bolted grey sheet-iron plates; intended as the governor's residence, it proved an oven under the African sun and now houses cultural heritage offices. At the top of the avenue rises the stark white art-deco spire of the 1944 Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception and the neoclassical City Hall, gateway to the Pancho Guedes modernist apartments of Polana.