Things to do
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Kristall Galerie
A quartz crystal billed as the largest known anywhere stands at the centre of this private mineral museum, alongside cases of quartz and semi precious stone from across the country. An artificial crystal cave has been built to walk through. A jeweller and a gemstone shop occupy the rest of the building.
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Martin Luther
A steam traction engine imported in the 1890s to haul freight up from the coast broke down in the sand and was never moved again. The nickname comes from Luther's declaration at Worms about standing and being unable to do otherwise. A glass shelter covers it now, on the eastern edge of town.
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Moon Landscape
Inland along the Swakop valley, the river has stripped a range of ancient rock into grey ridges and gullies with no soil and almost no plants on them. The road runs along the rim and the pullouts look straight down into it. Late afternoon is when the ridges separate and the shadows arrive.
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Strand Hotel
The promenade ends at this hotel, which occupies the Mole itself with water on three sides and the jetty in view from most of the rooms. Several restaurants and a bar open onto the seafront below it. The position is the reason to book it, and the sea fog is part of the deal.
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Swakopmund Jetty
Iron replaced the original wooden pier after the sea took it apart, and the structure now runs out over the surf with a restaurant at its seaward end. Anglers work the rails along both sides. Closed for years and rebuilt since, the walk to the end and back is the town's standing evening ritual.
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Swakopmund Lighthouse
The Schutztruppe raised this granite tower in 1902, eleven metres of it, to supplement a red beacon already burning on the tip of the Mole. Red and white banding makes it the landmark visible from most of the seafront. It still works, and the garden at its foot holds the war memorial.
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Swakopmund Museum
Housed in the old customs building by the Mole, the collection covers the Namib's geology, the coastal Topnaar, colonial settlement and the mineral wealth that paid for the railway. A reconstructed apothecary and a printing press sit among the cases. It is the best indoor hour in town on a grey morning.
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Woermann House
One of the oldest buildings in town, put up by a shipping and trading company, with a tower that was used to watch for vessels arriving off the roadstead and for ox wagons coming in from the interior. A gallery and a public library occupy it now, and the tower is open to climb.