Maputo

Maputo sits on a wide bay at the southern tip of the country, and it moves at its own pace. The Baixa holds the oldest layers — the Fortaleza, the Iron House designed in the Eiffel workshops, and the CFM railway station with its green dome and wrought-iron canopy. Uptown, Avenida Julius Nyerere and Avenida 24 de Julho are lined with jacarandas, cafés and bars that fill after dark.

Markets structure the day. The Mercado Central sells fish, spices, cashews and coconuts under a 1901 iron roof. FEIMA, in Praça 25 de Junho, is where sculptors, painters and capulana tailors work in the open. Zimpeto, on the outskirts, is the largest and most local of them all.

End the day at Costa do Sol, the 1930s beachfront restaurant on the northern shore, where the standard order has been grilled prawns and a cold beer for the better part of a century.