Lüderitz is one of the strangest towns in Africa — a pocket of German Art Nouveau architecture set on a windswept, rocky coast at the edge of the Namib Desert. The town was founded in 1883 by a German merchant and boomed briefly during a diamond rush in the early 1900s, then settled into a long, quiet decline. Today it has a population of about 12,000 and a slightly surreal atmosphere: pastel-coloured Jugendstil buildings, a Lutheran church on a hill, and the cold Benguela Current crashing against barren rock.
Kolmanskop, the abandoned diamond-mining town about 10 kilometres inland, is the main attraction. The houses are being slowly consumed by desert sand, creating one of the most photographed ghost towns in the world. You need a permit to visit. The Goerke Haus, a villa built for a diamond company manager, is preserved as a museum and gives a sense of how lavishly the diamond era lived. The Felsenkirche — the Lutheran church on the hill — has a rose window donated by Kaiser Wilhelm II himself.
The coast around Lüderitz is wild and cold — the water is too frigid for swimming, but the birdlife is excellent. Diaz Point, south of town, has a replica of the cross planted by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 and a colony of jackass penguins. Shark Island, now a campsite, was once a German colonial concentration camp — a dark history that sits uncomfortably alongside the town's attractive architecture. The crayfish is outstanding — Lüderitz rock lobster is considered some of the best in southern Africa. The wind blows relentlessly, which keeps the town quiet but makes the setting all the more dramatic.