Praia

The Cabo Verde islands were uninhabited when Portuguese navigators reached them in the middle of the 15th century, and that is the first thing to understand about Praia: there was no earlier town, only a colony built from scratch. Settlement began in 1462 at Ribeira Grande on Santiago, a sheltered valley harbour a short way west of today's capital. The town, now called Cidade Velha, became the first European colonial settlement in the tropics and an early hub of the Atlantic slave trade, where captives brought from the African mainland were held, baptised and shipped onward to the Americas. The colonists and the enslaved people they brought together are the two roots of Cabo Verdean society, and their mixing produced the Creole language and culture that define the islands today.

Ribeira Grande's fortunes did not last. Francis Drake attacked it in 1585, a French raid followed in 1712, the harbour silted, and trade shifted to other routes. The seat of government moved to the rise above the sea that people called Praia, the beach, and by the later 18th century it had become the administrative centre. For most of the colonial period the town stayed small. Drought and famine were the islands' recurring disaster, with severe famines in the 19th and 20th centuries pushing thousands to leave for other islands, for Portugal's African colonies and for whaling ships bound for New England.

Independence came on 5 July 1975 after a liberation struggle led by the PAIGC, the party founded by Amílcar Cabral, who was assassinated in 1973 and is still honoured on statues and street names. Praia became the capital of a young republic, and Cabo Verde moved from one-party rule to a multiparty system in 1991. Since then it has been noted in the region for stable elections and steady development. The city has grown quickly, spreading west to Palmarejo and east to Achada Santo António, but the Plateau, with its squares and old administrative buildings, is still where the story of the capital is easiest to read on foot.

Praia reads best as four districts within a few kilometres of each other, each with its own pace. The Plateau, or Platô, is the old centre: a flat rise with the main square, the cathedral, the ministries and the museum, where the streets run in a rough grid and the buildings are low. It is busy on weekday mornings and quiet after dark, when the offices empty and the cafés thin out. Below it, on the south coast, the town beach of Prainha and its promenade give the city its seaside face, and at weekends families and swimmers fill the sand.

West of the centre, Palmarejo is the district that shows how the city is changing. It began as open ground and has filled with apartment blocks, hotels and restaurants, and its seafront walk is where many residents go at the end of the day. Palmarejo is a place to eat and sleep rather than to visit, and it is a good answer for travellers who want a calm evening and a sea view. To the east and south-east, Achada Santo António is a newer residential and business quarter, with bakeries, cafés, offices and the kind of shops that serve neighbours rather than visitors.

Beyond those four are the districts that most visitors do not see but that make up much of the city: Várzea and the inland neighbourhoods, the area around the port and Gamboa beach, and the outer settlements where many people arrive from the other islands and from the Santiago countryside. The Sucupira market, on the edge of the Plateau, is the place where these worlds meet: farmers and traders from across Santiago, cloth and household goods, fish, fruit and the smell of frying. It is loud and hot, and it repays an early start. Everything in Praia is a short taxi ride, but the hills, the steps and the sun are what shape a day, which is why the local rhythm is morning outdoors, a long lunch, and the beach or the seafront when the light softens.

Praia's older architecture is modest and colonial, and it is concentrated on the Plateau. The buildings around the main square are low, plastered and painted in soft colours, with shuttered windows, small balconies and arcaded ground floors in the Portuguese tradition. The cathedral of Nossa Senhora da Graça stands on the edge of the square and gives it a focus, and the ministries and the presidential residence nearby carry the look of administrative buildings from the later colonial period. They are not grand, and that is part of their interest: they belong to a small island capital, not to an imperial city.

For older stonework you go west to Cidade Velha, where the layout of the first colonial town survives along a single main street that runs from the harbour up the valley. The church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dates from the early colonial period and is among the oldest colonial churches anywhere. A pillory stands in the square, a reminder of the slave trade that made the town rich, and the ruins of the cathedral show how large the town once was. Above it all, the Fortaleza Real de São Filipe, built in the late 16th century after Drake's raid, looks over the bay and is worth the climb for the view.

Since independence the city has added the architecture of a modern capital: a National Assembly building, ministries, banks and, especially in Palmarejo and Achada Santo António, blocks of apartments and hotels. Some were built with foreign funding and labour, and much of the building boom follows a period of rapid growth in tourism and services. Look for the small details that make the modern city local: painted walls and murals, patterned pavement, and the colours that people choose for houses and shopfronts. A slow walk through the Plateau in the morning and a seafront stroll in Palmarejo at dusk are two different views of the same young capital.

Cachupa is the national dish and the best way into Cabo Verdean cooking. It is a slow stew of dried maize and beans, cooked for hours with cassava, sweet potato and pumpkin, and finished with pork, sausage, chicken or fish. Cachupa rica is the full version with meat; cachupa pobre is the leaner one. The next day the leftovers are fried with onion and sausage and topped with an egg as cachupa refogada, which many people prefer for breakfast. The dish grew out of scarcity: maize was what the islands could grow in the dry years, and everything else was added when it was available.

The sea supplies the other half of the table. Tuna, wahoo and grouper are grilled and served with rice, boiled cassava or potato and salad, and lobster is the splurge, priced by weight. Pastel com diabo dentro, a fried pastry filled with spiced tuna or fish, is the snack to know, sold at bakeries and stalls for a few dozen escudos. Xerém, a coarse maize porridge, appears with fish or meat, and goat is a common alternative to pork. Fresh goat cheese from the islands turns up at breakfast with bread and papaya, and the coffee grown on Fogo is a light and worthwhile souvenir.

Drinks follow the same logic. Strela is the local beer and is easy to find, but the distinctive spirit is grogue, made from fermented sugarcane juice on Santiago, Santo Antão and other islands. It is strong and often sold from unlabelled bottles, so buy it sealed and sip it slowly. Ponche, a mix of grogue with molasses and lime, is the softer way to start. Wine from Fogo is a small but growing pleasure. For visitors, the rule is simple: eat where the pot is hot and busy, ask the price before you sit, and treat fish and lobster as items priced by weight. Cash, in small notes, is the currency of the market and the tasca.

Cabo Verde is known abroad for its music, and Santiago has its own strand of it. The most famous form, morna, is a slow, melancholy song of longing and departure, often described through the Kriolu word sodade. It is linked in the world's ear to Cesária Évora of Mindelo, on São Vicente, whose recordings carried the islands' sound abroad. Coladeira is its lighter, faster cousin, and both are heard across the islands in bars, on the radio and at family parties.

Santiago's own traditions are older and closer to the African roots of the island's people. Batuku is a women's tradition of song, dance and rhythm, in which a circle of performers beats cloth or cushions held between the knees while a lead voice calls out verses on love, work and community life. Funaná, played on the accordion and a scraper called the ferro, is the fast dance music of the interior, once discouraged by the colonial authorities and now celebrated as a symbol of identity. Tabanka, a procession tradition with drumming and costume, belongs to the same world. These are the sounds you may hear at festivals and in the neighbourhoods, and they reward a respectful, curious visitor.

In Praia the live-music calendar is modest but real. Small venues on and near the Plateau host morna and funaná nights, the Kriol Jazz Festival brings international performers to the city in spring, and the Gamboa beach festival draws big crowds. Younger artists from Praia and Santiago, among them Mayra Andrade, who grew up in the city, and Tcheka, whose guitar work draws on Santiago's traditions, have carried the sound to audiences abroad. The best way to hear it is to ask your hotel what is on this week, book a taxi both ways, and arrive after 22:00. For batuku or tabanka, ask a cultural centre or a local guide about a respectful visit; these are community traditions, not shows.

Kriolu, or Cape Verdean Creole, is the language of the street, the music and the home. It grew out of contact between Portuguese and the languages of the West African mainland, and it is a full language, not a dialect of Portuguese. There are two main groups: Sotavento, spoken on Santiago and the southern islands, and Barlavento, spoken on the northern islands, and there are local differences between islands. Portuguese remains the official language of law, schools and government, so visitors will see and hear both, often in the same conversation. A Bon dia before any question is expected, and Obrigadu or Obrigada is welcome.

Cabo Verde is also a diaspora nation. Because of drought, hardship and the long history of emigration, at least as many Cabo Verdeans live abroad as at home, mainly in Portugal, the United States, the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg and Senegal. The diaspora sends money home, returns for the holidays in July, August and December, and shapes fashion, music and expectations at home. When flights and hotels fill in those months, that is why. It also explains why Praia feels international: nearly every family has someone abroad, and English, French or Portuguese is often on hand.

For visitors, the practical manners are easy to learn. Greet first and take your time; people will ask how you are before they ask what you want. Dress lightly for the beach and cover up for churches and town. Ask before photographing people, especially at the market. Agree prices before you sit at a stall or get into a taxi. Keep bags and phones out of sight in crowds. Take the time to sit and eat, because service runs at island pace and a rush reads as rude. If you are invited into a conversation, accept it: Cabo Verdeans are proud of their music, their food and their sea, and they enjoy explaining them to a curious visitor.