The Avenue Charles de Gaulle runs through the centre of the old colonial quarter, a wide tree-lined boulevard with a mix of period buildings — the cathedral, the post office, the old railway station — and modern construction. It is one of the more atmospheric streets to walk in the city, particularly in the late afternoon when the heat eases.
The railway station at the eastern end, the Gare de Pointe-Noire, is a 1930s art deco-influenced terminus and the western end of the Congo-Ocean railway, the most ambitious engineering project of French colonial Africa. The line is now barely operational, but the station building itself is one of the city's better pieces of architecture.