Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
FREETOWN
022 / POP 1.1 MILLION
Strung between the mountains and the sea, Sierra Leone's capital is a cheeky, quicksilver
capital bubbling with energy, colour and charm. One minute it's calm, offering up quiet
beaches, friendly Krio chat and warm plates of soup and rice. The next it's frenzied and
playing dirty, throwing you into the back of a shared taxi and hurtling you up and down its
pretty little hills.
And it might just be the only capital in the world where when you emerge from the air-
port, blinking after an overnight flight, you find yourself standing on the wooden deck of a
port flanked by a backdrop of mountains, beaches and palm trees so idyllic you wonder if
it's real. Well it's all real, all of it - the chatter and the chaos and the colour and the dirt and
the lush lobster dinners and the devastating war history - and those lovely white sands too.
Sights & Activities
Cotton Tree
GARDENS
Freetown's most famous landmark is the fat Cotton Tree in the centre of the old part of
town. Nobody's sure if it can be quite that old, but some say the city's poor black settlers
rested in its shadows when they landed in Freetown in 1787. Either way, the tree has wit-
nessed a lot, including the invasion of a huge colony of chirpy bats that were kicked out by
authorities in 2010 - rumour has it that one day the bats will return.
