Boulevard du 30 Juin is the spine of Gombe, Kinshasa's administrative and business district, running roughly five kilometres along the river side of the city. Named for the date of the DRC's independence from Belgium in 1960, it is lined with the embassies, international banks, government ministries, and large hotels that make Gombe feel like a different city from the residential communes sprawling beyond. The traffic is permanently gridlocked, but the pavements are more walkable than most of Kinshasa.
The boulevard is a good orientation point for newcomers and a reasonable place for a morning walk under the shade of its trees. Several of the city's better hotels and restaurants are clustered nearby, and the street gives you a sense of Kinshasa's official ambitions alongside its daily reality -- the stalled traffic, the informal vendors, the occasional government motorcade sweeping through at speed. The name itself is a reminder that this city was a colonial capital and then, abruptly, a capital city.