Head out on the streets
Get an overall impression of the town by taking a two-hour walk with a guide through the historic town centre. Okay, it’s not exactly like seeing mountain gorillas with David Attenborough, but you’ll get a quick overview of the town and its history.

Karene Brewis showed us all the most important buildings, such as the town museum, which was once a brewery, and Hohenzollern Haus, one of the prettiest buildings in Swakopmund (and a brothel at one time).

Cost: R180 per person.
Contact:  00 264 81 124 3329/7039

Treat yourself
After your walk, head for a place such as Café Treff Punkt in Sam Nujoma Avenue for genuine German pastries and baking. It serves light meals such as fleischkäse, a kind of baked meat loaf, as I discovered. About 100 m down the street there’s the Swakopmunder Fleischerei & Bistro, where you can sink your teeth into German cheese sausage, bockwurst and black pudding… or buy ordinary droëwors for the road.

Contact: Café Treff Punkt  00 264 64 46 1712. Swakopmunder Fleischerei & Bistro 00 264 64 46 3064

Browse around
A keen shopper would be able to make light work of Swakop’s most important shops in an hour. Walk around, peep through the windows and browse. There’s a bunch of boutiques in the Woermann Arcade, as well as an Internet café and a sidewalk café for the dads who can’t keep up. 

Do some excercise
Walk to Woermann Haus information centre and get the key to the house’s tower. From the top you can clearly see how Swakop stretches into the desert on all sides. Take pictures. It costs R15, but it’s good exercise: There are 93 steps to the top.

Where? The tower is in Bismarck Street, but you can also get to it from the Woermann Arcade.
Contact: Swakopmund Info * 00 264 64 40 5448; * 00 264 81 205 9306

The world's largest crystal
Visit the Kristall Gallery to see the world’s largest quartz crystal on display: 3 m by 3,5 m, with a mass of more than 14 tons. This whopper was found on the farm Otjua in the Karibib district in 1985, 45 m underground. It took the owner, Hannes Kleynhans, five years to unearth the crystal in one piece and transport it to the display site. There are also other mineral displays in the gallery.

Cost: R20 per adult and R12 per child.
Where? On the corner of Tobias Hainyeko and Theo-Ben Gurirab roads.
Contact: *00 264 64 40 6080
 

Eat your heart out
Swakop has about 50 restaurants. (If you are struggling to find one, check the GPS: You’re probably still in Karibib. – Ed).
The choice is not limited to German fare, either. At Napolitana we found delicious pizza and pasta, and at Café Anton wonderful light meals.

Contact: Napolitana 00 264 64 40 2773; Café Anton: 00 264 64 40 0331

Wind in your hair
Not everyone is wild about quad biking, but it can be fun. These operators know which routes are allowed (so damage to the ecosystem is contained). Go and feel the wind in your hair and sand between your teeth.

Cost: From R150 per person for half an hour. Children older than seven can join in the fun. Longer trips are also offered.
Contact: Desert Explorers Adventure Centre 00 264 64 40 6096;
Dare Devil Adventures 00 264 81 128 4492

Stroll through the market
If you like to haggle, visit the market next to Swakopmund’s town museum. Here, the salesmen will badger you while you browse through the cloth, wooden giraffes and drums.

Aim for the market opposite the Gefängnis in Henties Bay Road if you have space in the bakkie for hardwood such as teak and rosewood for tables, floors and anything else, which wood-sellers like Caprivian Luke Simasiku peddle. That’s in additon to the usual clay pots and tin animals being hawked.

Yummy goodies
Take a break from Pick ’n Pay, Spar or Checkers. Woermann, Brock & Co, in the Woermann Arcade, offers all the standard necessities like Marmite and Romany Creams, plus genuine German cookies, bockwurst, bratwurst and other difficult-to-spell but delicious goodies.

Where: Tobias Hainyeko Street
Contact: * 00 264 64 41 5500

Watch the sun set
The sea here is something special: cold, rough and nobody’s playmate. You simply have to experience the Atlantic waters close-up, and the best place for that is Swakopmund’s famous wooden jetty. As the waves pound below, spray is funnelled up to drench your face.
Go at dusk, because it’s something special to see the sun set over the sea.

Cost: Free! And if you buy a palm-nut key ring with your name carved on it from one of the vendors, don’t pay more than R20. They must have seen me coming with my R60. If you feel hungry, The Tug, built out of the remains of the old tugboat Danie Hugo, offers good seafood. Book ahead on *00 264 64 40 2356

Tuck into Eisbein
You really cannot visit Swakop without enjoying Eisbein. The Western Saloon in Tobias Hainyeko Road comes highly recommended.  If you are more hungry than thirsty, consider the Swakopmund Brauhaus’s “stiefel”. This glass boot holds two litres of beer, enough to slake a desert thirst. (And never let it be said South Africans are not internationally competitive: The unofficial beer-drinking record at the Brauhaus is held by two South Africans, who each drank 15 litres of beer.)

Cost: R92 for a plate of Eisbein.
Contact: Western Saloon *00 264 64 40 5395; Swakopmund Brauhaus 00 264 64 40 2214