Swakopmund, Namibia's second biggest town and traditional "summer capital", is one of the most surreal places in this surreal country. Swakopmund (German for "Mouth of the Swakop") is a city on the Atlantic coast of northwestern Namibia, 280 km west of Windhoek. The city lies on the B2 road and the Trans-Namib Railway from Windhoek to Walvis Bay. It is also home to Swakopmund Airport. You approach Swakopmund through the endless expanses of the Namib Desert, one of the world's largest wilderness areas. Then, through the mists (it is almost always misty in the morning and late afternoon) Bavarian spires and elaborate Germanic architecture rise through the fog banks. The boom of the surf on the notorious Skeleton Coast is an ever-present reminder of the icy Atlantic Ocean beyond. Swakopmund is an eclectic mixture of Bohemian and Bavarian, home to an intriguing mix of artists, hippies, strait-laced descendants of Germans settlers, stately Herero women in Victorian dress, and hard bitten miners, game rangers, safari operators and fishermen, Swakopmund exudes romance and history, a rich cultural melting pot of old and new.

Swakopmund - Namibia's premier holiday resort is characterised by a wealth of well-presered German colonial buildings and German is still widely spoken.

Accommodation:

Alte Brucke has luxury one- and two bedroom chalets, each of which is equipped with bedding and towels, colour television and telephone, refrigerator, stove and microwave oven, all kitchen utensils as well as stocked minibar. There is a double bed in the one bedroom chalets and four single beds in the twobed room chalets.

Alte Brucke is a mere 200m from the beach and offers great camping facilities. Each stand has its own private facilities, with grassed campsites being unique in this desert environment.

The Swakopmund Hotel and Entertainment Centre is a centrally situated four-star hotel. The building used to be the old Swakopmund Station and dates back to 1901. After extensive renovations it has been restored to its former Victorian glory, and officially opened as an hotel at the end of 1994. With 90 rooms, the hotel is not small, and neither is the range of facilities available, including a valet service and baby sitting facilities. The hotel has two restaurants, "Platform One" and the "Captains Tavern", offering gourmet cuisine. Also on offer is the "Mermaid Casino", a video arcade, cinema, hairdresser and gym. The hotel even has its own shopping centre and fast food outlet situated in a separate part of the building so as not to disturb the peace and tranquilty of guests. The rooms and suites are all decorated in a Victorian-style reminiscent of a bygone era of grace and civility. Rooms at the Swakopmune have individual air-conditioning, television, tea\coffee making facilities, bathroom with bath, shower and toilet, direct dialling phones, electronic safes, electric razor plugs, fully stocked mini-bars, hair dryers, eight channel TV (including a German channel) and M-Net.

The Hotel Pension Rapmund has been under the management of the Rapmund family since 1968. Offering 25 en-suite rooms, reasonable prices and being centrally situated, close to the beach and the shops\restaurants. Enjoy a leisurely breakfast in relaxed surroundings, looking across the garden towards the sea.

The rooms of Hotel Eberwein are furnished in Victoria style. Even the stucco ceilings, windows and doors of the original structure have been preserved. Altogether, there are 16 double bedded rooms and one single bed room, each of which are individually designed and come either with a bar or shower cabin. All rooms are also equipped with a television, telephone, mini bar and hairdryer to allow guests to enjoy their stay in maximum confort. The under-floor heating will ensure that the rooms remain cozy and warm on cold Swakopmund days.

Night time entertainment in Swakopmund ranges from sophisticated spins on the casino's roulette wheels, through raucous parties at the many pubs and restaurants, to an assortment of drama, music and cultural events. Once you've got over the shock of being in a little corner of old Bavaria wedged between one of the world's harshest deserts and even harsher coastlines, the bewitching desert beckons. Just outside town is the extraordinary Moon Landscape, a seemingly never-ending series of bizarre hills that look like pictures taken of Mars, or the Sea of Tranquility. It is best visited at sunrise or sunset. A bit further afield, in the bed of the Khan River, is the oasis of Goanikontes, a lush splash of water and vegetation, in the barren Namib. For botanists, there is the lure of the fields of what have been called "living fossils", the giant Welwitschia mirabilis. These have underground stems which are up to four metres wide. The tree has just two leaves, which droop in opposite directions. If one of the leaves dies, the plant dies. The oldest living specimen has been dated at 2 000 years old, while the average age of the youngsters is between 500 and 600 years old. Just outside Swakopmund, a section of towering barcan dunes have been set aside for recreational purposes - sand boarding and skiing, quadbiking, camel rides and offroad driving. Swakopmund also offers a host of other attractions, including excursions - do a boat trip to see dolphins and seals, shorebased angling (some of the best in Africa), skin diving, surfing, or just simply lazing on the beach. And, of course, the town is surrounded by the Namib Naukluft Park, one of the most bewitching desert wilderness areas in Africa, for one day trips or longer safaris for the ultimate desert camping experience.

With palm-lined streets, seaside promenades and fine accommodation for all budgets, Swakopmund is Namibia's most popular holiday destination, and its pleasant summer climate and decent beaches attract surfers, anglers and beach lovers from all over Southern Africa. Swakopmund has mild temperatures, averaging between 15°C and 25°C, and negligible rainfall, less than 15mm per year, making gutters and drainpipes on buildings a rarity. When an easterly wind blows, Swakopmund gets a good sand-blasting, and an almost perpetual drizzle. The fog rolls up to 30km inland and provides moisture for desert-dwelling plants and animals, including 80 species of lichen.

For better or worse, Swakopmund feels overwhelmingly Teutonic - indeed, it has Germany - but for visitors, it's Namibia's adrenalin capital, and offers a wide range of gut curdling activities.

Further attractions include a transport museum, the National Marine Aquarium, a crystal gallery and spectacular dunes near Langstrand south of the Swakop River. Outside of the city, the Rossmund Desert Golf Course is one of the only 5 all-grass desert golf courses in the world. Nearby lies a camel farm and the Martin Luther steam locomotive, dating from 1895 and abandoned in the desert.

Walvis Bay, 30km south of Swakopmund, is Namibia's major port and centre of the fishing industry. The Walvis Bay wetlands are world reknown for the large concentration of waders, flamingos and shore birds.

The majority of the towns and villages in Namibia have grown out of indigenous settlements and very often located close to sources of water. Names of places given by original inhabitants were very descriptive and in many cases those names were retained by European settlers who sometimes simplified pronunciations of the names. The Nama name was changed to "Swachaub" by German settlers, and with the proclamation of Swakopmund as an independent district of German South-West Africa 1896, the present way of writing Swakopmund (meaning Estuary of the Swakop in German) came into use.

Swakopmund was founded in 1892, two years later than Windhoek, by Captain Curt von Francois. It was intended to be the main harbour of German South-West Africa. Increased traffic between Germany and its colony necessitated establishing a port of its own, as Walvis Bay, located 33km south, was in British possession. The choice fell to a site north of the Swakop River, because water was readily available, and because other sites were unsuitable. It should be noted however, that the site did not offer any natural protection to ships lying off the coast, such places being very rare on Namibia's western coast.

On 4 August 1892 the crew of a gunboat named Hyäne (German for Hyena) erected two beacons on a large dune, probably in the vicinity of the present lighthouse. This is regarded as the founding date of Swakopmund. The first settlers were 120 Schutztruppe with equipment and 40 settlers who offloaded from the Marie Woermann using four landing boats. The settlers had to build caves on the beach to protect themselves against hostile weather. Before a breakwater was built in 1898, which later became known as the Mole, all offloading was done with special boats that could only be handled by Kroo men from Liberia. At that time, up to 600 Kroo tribesmen were employed by the Woerman Line. The number of vessels offloading in Swakopmund was increasing rapidly. In 1894, only four ships offloaded, and in 1895 there were five. In 1896 the Woerman Line introduced bi-monthly services, and in 1899, monthly service to Swakopmund. Due to lack of building materials, most of the first settlers' houses were prefabricated wood.

Swakopmund quickly became the main port for imports and exports for the whole territory, and was one of six towns which received municipal status in 1909. Many government offices for German South-West Africa had offices in Swakopmund. Trading and shipping companies founded branches in Swakopmund. A number of these buildings still exist today. After German South-West Africa was taken over by the Union of South Africa in 1915, all harbour activities were transferred from Swakopmund to Walvis Bay. Many of the Central Government services ceased. Businesses closed down, the number of inhabitants diminished, and the town became less prosperous. However, the natural potential of Swakopmund as a holiday resort was recognised, and this potential has subsequently been developed. Today tourism-related services form an important part of Swakopmund's economy. The discovery of uranium at Rössing, 70km outside Swakopmund, led to the development of the world's largest opencast uranium mine. This had an enormous impact on all facets of life in Swakopmund which necessitated expansion of the infrastructure of Swakopmund to make it into one of the most modern in Namibia. In October 2000 an agreement was signed between the Namibia and People's Republic of China governments to build a satellite tracking station at Swakopmund. Construction was completed in July 2001 at a side north of Swakopmund to the east of the Henties Bay \ Swakopmund road and opposite the Swakopmund Salt Works. The site was chosen as it was the orbital track of a manned spacecraft during the re-entry phase. Costing N$12 million, the complex covers 150m by 85m. It is equipped with 5m and 9m satellite dishes. In August 2008 filming commenced in Swakopmund on the AMC television series The Prisoner starring Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen. Swakopmund was used as the film location for The Village.

Soon, Swakopmund harbour created by the Mole silted up, and in 1905 work was started on a wooden jetty, but in the long run this was inadequate. In 1914 construction of an iron jetty was therefore commenced, the remains of which can still be seen today. After World War I it became a pedestrian walkway. It was declared structurally unsound and was closed to the public for several years and in 2006 renovations to the portion supported by concrete pillars was completed with the remaining portion being alienated. It was opened to the public once more in late 2006.