Cidade Velha

Ribeira Grande de Santiago - Cidade Velha, the old city - was the first European colonial town in the tropics, founded in 1462 and grown rich and terrible as a hub of the Atlantic slave trade, where ships, crops and enslaved people from three continents first met. UNESCO inscribed it in 2009 for exactly that pivotal, painful role. What remains rewards the short trip from Praia: the hilltop Fortaleza Real de Sao Filipe glowering over the bay, the marble pillory of 1512 in the old square, the ruined cathedral begun in 1556, and Rua Banana's row of stone-and-thatch houses running up a valley of palms and banana gardens toward the convent ruins.

What you actually see

• Fortaleza Real de Sao Filipe - the 1580s hilltop fort above the bay.
• The pillory square - the 1512 marble column at the town's heart.
• The cathedral ruins - the vast unfinished-and-ruined 16th-century shell.
• Rua Banana - the thatched lane up the green valley to the convent.

When to go

November to June for dry, breezy weather; the site is compact enough for a morning from Praia with lunch by the fishing beach. Late afternoon light warms the fort's basalt.

Honest expectations

This is a place to visit with its history in mind: the town's wealth was built on the slave trade, and the pillory in particular is a monument to coercion - guides here tell the story straight, and it deserves hearing. The physical remains are fragmentary; without the context the town reads as a pretty fishing village with ruins. Midday is shadeless and hot on the fort hill.

Nearby

Praia's plateau old town, the Serra Malagueta trails and Santiago's interior markets.