Sights in Banjul
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A
Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital
Gambia's main health facility, the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital not only offers emergency treatment, but also conducts tours of its complex of late-19th-century and modern buildings. This might indicate how wholly the country is devoted to and dependent upon the tourist dollar, or how ingenious even the health sector has to be in order to maintain public services.
A hospital visit might not sound like a seductive holiday idea, but the daily two-hour tours (free, though donations are welcome) are surprisingly interesting. They offer excellent explanations of the hospital's international teaching programmes and research projects into malaria and hepatitis, and a worthw…
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Old Town
West from the ferry terminal towards the wide Ma Cumba Jallow St (Dobson St) is a chaotic assembly of decrepit colonial buildings and Krio-style clapboard houses - steep-roofed structures with wrought-iron balconies and corrugated roofs. It's no coincidence they resemble the inner-city architecture of Freetown, Sierra Leone, as many of them still belong to families who came to Banjul from Freetown, some as early as the 1820s.
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B
Ferry Terminal
The Ferry Terminal for the ferry to Barra, with its endless queues of rusty lorries, the industrious hum of cargo being loaded and discharged, passengers boarding and disembarking and the continuous chatter of patiently waiting customers is worth experiencing. Directly opposite, the warehouses, clothes stalls and grocery wholesalers that line Liberation St resound with animated bartering that mingles with the clamour.
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C
Arch 22
Designed by Senegalese architect Pierre Goudiaby, Arch 22 is a gateway built to celebrate the military coup of 22 July 1994. At 35m high, it's by far the tallest building in The Gambia, and its publicly accessible balcony grants excellent views over the city and coast. There's also a cosy café, a souvenir shop and a small museum that enlightens visitors about the coup d'état.
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July 22 Square
A recently greened colonial creation, July 22 Square was once the site of cricket matches but is now mainly used for governmental pomp and public celebrations. Look out for the War Memorial and the (now dried-up) fountain 'erected by public subscription' to commemorate the coronation of King George VI of Britain in 1937.
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D
National Museum
The National Museum has some dog-eared and dated exhibits (including, rather bizarrely, the dress worn by Miss Gambia in 1984) that are still worth a look. Explanations are generally good, and there's a fascinating if dusty display of photos, maps and historical papers.
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