Blantyre's sights are modest in number but high in quality. The city's Scottish missionary heritage left behind some of the finest colonial-era buildings in Central Africa, and the national museum gives the country's turbulent history a coherent shape.
The Church of St Michael and All Angels is the city's undisputed highlight — an extraordinary brick structure built without nails by a self-taught missionary and local labourers in the 1880s. Mandala House, a short distance away, is the oldest surviving building in Malawi, now housing a pleasant café and bookshop that makes a good mid-morning stop. For context on the country as a whole, the Chichiri Museum on the Blantyre-Limbe road covers everything from prehistory through the slave trade to independence.
A half-day is enough to see all three. The church and Mandala House are close to each other near the old mission area; the museum is a few kilometres east along the main road.