The German colonial railway station at Kigoma is one of the country's most attractive small pieces of colonial architecture: a low whitewashed building with deep verandas, completed in 1914 just before the First World War cut the line off from its German operators. The Central Line from Dar es Salaam took years to build and was the longest railway in German East Africa; its terminus here at Kigoma was meant to bring the lake — and the colonies beyond it — into the German empire's economic orbit.
The trains still run, though slowly and irregularly. The two- to three-day journey from Dar es Salaam is one of East Africa's classic rail experiences when the line is functioning. Even if you arrive or leave by road or air, it is worth walking down to the station to look at the building and to imagine the regular comings and goings of a century ago, when this was the threshold between the colonial coast and the great lake beyond.