Praia

Praia sits on a plateau above her own bay — the Plateau, literally, is the old town's name — on Santiago, the first island of a country that is all islands and all crossroads: Cape Verde was uninhabited until the Portuguese and the Atlantic trade filled it with the mixture that became the Kriolu language, morna music, and a national talent for saudade with a beat. Fifteen minutes west lies Cidade Velha, the first European colonial town in the tropics, its street of stone houses still lived-in under the old fort.

The sensible traveller walks the Plateau's grid in the morning — Sucupira market for everything, the palace for the flags —; eats cachupa, the national stew that improves by the day; takes the afternoon in Cidade Velha under the fort of São Filipe, where the pillory in the square tells the hard history straight; swims at Quebra Canela with the families; and lets the evening become music, because in Cape Verde it always does — a morna in a courtyard is worth the whole itinerary.

The Guide's honesty: 'no stress' is the national phrase and the timetable agrees — ferries and inter-island flights move when they move: build slack and adopt the philosophy —; the ocean has real currents: ask before swimming beyond the marked beaches; euros change easily and the escudo is pegged; and Santiago is the beginning, not the whole — Fogo's volcano and Mindelo's music are why the country insists you island-hop.