Built as a private house, a so-called "diamond palace" whose owner made his fortune in the diamond rush, it opens to the public at limited times and is used as a VIP guesthouse.About 500km north of Luderitz is the only other coastal town of any size, Swakopmund, Namibia's main seaside resort and unmistakeably German in its demeanor. The main thoroughfare, Kaiser Wilhelm Street, heads east from the ocean, and is lined, like the streets that criss-cross it, with lovely colonial buildings. Grandest of all is the Kaiserliches Bezirksgericht, which is the summer residence of the country's president. Across the road, the town's museum, founded by a German dentist half a century ago, provides the background to Swakopmund's history.Directly west from the seaside resort lies the country's capital. Populated centuries ago by settlers attracted to its hot springs, Windhoek became a military outpost under the German occupation and transformed into a quasi-European city. Its military origins are commemorated in Zoo Park, where the Kriegerdenkmal is a memorial to the German soldiers who died fighting the Nama trabesmen at the end of the 19th century.The regime was run from the Alte Feste, an imposing white building that now houses part of the National Museum.
The German influence is felt all over the city: older residents will even be able to direct you to Kaiser Strasse, although these days the city's main north-south artery is known officially as Independence Avenue. The Gathemann House, one of three striking colonial buildings on the avenue's west side, is an interesting reminder of the incongruous juxtaposition of European style in an African setting. The roof was designed as it would have been in Germany: sloping steeply so that snow would slide off it easily.The colonial heart of the city is nearby. The Tintenpalast, once the headquarters of the German administration, is now the Namibian parliament building.
Opposite is one of Windhoek's best-known landmarks, the Christus Kirche, an attractive Lutheran building which is open to anyone who collects the key from the church office down the road.Windhoek's railway station on Bahnhof Street is a reminder that, in addition to their architectural legacy, the Germans developed the Namibian railway system. Its history is depicted in a museum in the station building, although most visitors use the place as the starting point for the Desert Express, a luxury train that trundles through the stark landscape a couple of times a week toward Swakopmund. It passes through a flat, sandy landscape and little grows there. But the Welwitschia mirabilis, which does, is believed to be the oldest plant in the world, and some of the specimens in this patch of desert could be nearly 2,000 years old. Once again, there is a colonial connection here, too: Dr Friedrich Welwitsch, who first identified the plant during the 19th century, was a German botanist. TRAVELLER'S GUIDECaf?nton, Bismarck Street, Swakopmund: 00 264 64 400 331Goerke Haus, Zeppelin Street, Luderitz, opens 8am-5pm from Mon-Fri. Entry is N$5 (40p)Alte Feste, Robert Mugabe Avenue, Windhoek (00 264 61 293 4362) opens 9am-6pm from Monday to Friday, 10am-12.45pm and 3pm-6pm on Saturday, 11am-12.30pm and 3pm-6pm on Sunday.
