Three days in Mombasa: the fort that changed hands nine times

Two nights on the island, with the Swahili old town and Fort Jesus on foot, sunset over the harbour mouth, and a morning among the giraffes in a rehabilitated quarry.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Mombasa
Places
7 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Mombasa was already a wealthy trading port when the Arab geographer al-Idrisi described it in the twelfth century, and it may well be older than that. It belonged to the Swahili coast, a chain of independent city states running from Somalia to Mozambique that grew rich shipping ivory, mangrove poles and enslaved people out to Arabia and India and bringing cloth, porcelain and Islam back. Vasco da Gama turned up in 1498, was met with hostility and sailed on to Malindi. The Portuguese came back with an army.

What they left is Fort Jesus, a coral-block star fort on the cliff above the harbour entrance, built in the 1590s and then fought over for the best part of three centuries. Portuguese, Omani Arabs, Mazrui governors, the Sultan of Zanzibar and eventually the British all held it, and it changed hands nine times between 1631 and 1875. Behind it is the old town: two-storey coral houses, carved wooden doors, Hindu temples, a nineteenth-century British naval building and lanes barely wide enough for a tuk-tuk.

Three days is the right length for the island itself. One afternoon for the modern city and the harbour, one full day for the fort and the old town, and a last morning north across the creek. The beaches and the diving are on either side of it, at Nyali and Diani, and they will take as many extra days as you have.

Highlights

  • Fort Jesus above the harbour entrance, still holding the cannon scars of three centuries of sieges
  • The old town's carved doors, coral walls and Swahili balconies, best walked in the early morning
  • Mama Ngina Drive at sunset, watching container ships thread the channel the Portuguese fought over
  • Haller Park, where a worked-out cement quarry now holds giraffe, hippo and forest

Where to stay

Mombasa, two nights

The city occupies a low coral island about five kilometres across, with the deep-water port of Kilindini on one side and Tudor Creek on the other. Fort Jesus and the lanes behind it sit at the eastern corner where the channel narrows, which is exactly why the fort is there. West of them is the commercial centre, laid out by the British around Moi Avenue and Digo Road, and the mainland suburbs spread north to Nyali and Bamburi.

Mombasa has been Muslim far longer than it has been anything else, and it also holds one of the oldest Indian communities in East Africa, brought by trade and then by the railway. The result is a skyline of minarets and mandirs, a neo-Gothic Catholic cathedral in the middle of the shopping streets, and a food culture that runs from Swahili biryani and coconut fish to Gujarati snacks and the tamarind juice sold from carts.

It is not a tidy city and it does not try to be. The pleasure of it is the layering: a Portuguese fort, an Omani old town, a British commercial grid and a Kenyan port all occupying the same square mile, with cargo ships sliding past the end of the street.

Day by day

Day 1 in Mombasa

Moi Avenue, the cathedral and sunset on the harbour mouth

Start with the tusks. Four aluminium arches straddle Moi Avenue, put up in 1956 for a visit by Princess Margaret and shaped so that from the right angle they spell out the letter M. They are the city's postcard, and they take about four minutes, which is the correct amount of time.

Walk east along the avenue into the commercial centre and cut to the Holy Ghost Cathedral, a neo-Gothic seat of the Catholic archdiocese with white domes and a cool, quiet interior that comes as a surprise between the fabric shops. This part of town is the British layer of Mombasa, and it is a good half hour of aimless walking: fabric shops, spice sellers, a great deal of shouting, and the occasional colonial facade with its plaster falling off.

Finish at Mama Ngina Waterfront, on the cliff at the southern tip of the island above the entrance to Kilindini harbour. Late afternoon is when the city comes here: families on the grass, coconut and cassava sold from stalls, and enormous container ships turning into the channel a few hundred metres below your feet. The light over the water at six is the best of the day.

  1. 15:00

    The tusks of Moi Avenue

    Visit

    The four aluminium tusks over Moi Avenue, built in 1956 for a royal visit. A photograph and a five minute stop, not a destination.

  2. 16:00

    Holy Ghost Cathedral

    Religious

    The white neo-Gothic cathedral on Nkrumah Road, a surprise among the shopfronts. Open to visitors outside services, and cool inside.

  3. 17:30

    Mama Ngina Park

    Visit

    The cliff-top park above the harbour mouth, at its best in the last hour of light. Free, busy with locals, and the place to eat grilled cassava.

  4. 19:30

    Swahili dinner on the island

    Eat

    Coconut fish curry, biryani and mahamri, the coast's cardamom doughnut. The island's kitchens do this far better than the beach hotels.

With more time: If the afternoon runs long, the Shri Kutch Satsang Temple was built in 1957 and welcomes visitors, and the Commonwealth war cemetery at Manyimbo is a quiet ten minutes with 225 graves from the Second World War.

Day 2 in Mombasa

Fort Jesus, Leven House and the lanes of the old town

Go to Fort Jesus early, before the heat and the tour buses. It was built between 1593 and 1596 to an Italian design, in coral block, on the rock commanding the harbour entrance, and it is laid out as a star so that every wall can be covered from another. What makes it worth two hours is not the architecture but the record of what happened in it: a siege by the Omanis that lasted almost three years and ended in 1698 with a handful of survivors, then two centuries of the fort passing between Omani, Mazrui, Zanzibari and British hands. The museum inside holds Chinese porcelain, Swahili pottery and the excavated remains of a Portuguese warship that sank below the walls.

Walk out of the fort's gate straight into the old town. It is a small quarter, a few hundred metres square, of narrow lanes and two- and three-storey coral houses with overhanging balconies and carved wooden doors, many of them studded with brass. Some are Omani, some Indian, some nineteenth-century British. Leven House on the waterfront is the one to look for: a merchant's house that became the base for the Royal Navy's anti-slavery patrols on this coast, named after the survey ship whose officers first occupied it.

The old town is residential and quiet, and the way to see it is to get lost in it for a couple of hours with a cold drink halfway through. Jahazi Coffee House, a restored merchant's building near the fort, serves spiced Arabic coffee and tea and is the natural stop. Come back out onto the seafront to look at the dhow harbour on Tudor Creek before the light goes.

  1. 09:00

    Fort Jesus

    Nature

    Open daily, ticketed, and worth two hours with the museum. Go at opening: there is very little shade on the ramparts by eleven.

  2. 11:30

    Old town

    Other

    The lanes behind the fort, best walked slowly and without a route. Cover your shoulders and knees; people live here.

  3. 13:15

    Lunch on the creek

    Eat

    The old town's terraces look straight over Tudor Creek at the dhows. Grilled fish, chapati, tamarind juice.

  4. 15:00

    Leven House

    Culture

    The nineteenth-century waterfront house the Royal Navy worked from on this coast. Restored, and mostly appreciated from outside.

  5. 16:15

    Jahazi Coffee House

    Eat

    Spiced coffee and cardamom tea in a restored merchant's house a couple of minutes from the fort. The right way to sit out the hottest hour.

With more time: The Krapf memorial marks where Johann Ludwig Krapf, the missionary who was the first European to report Mount Kenya, buried his wife and daughter within months of arriving in 1844, and the ruin of Fort St Joseph on Mama Ngina Drive probably predates Fort Jesus and is almost entirely ignored.

Day 3 in Mombasa

Giraffes in a quarry, north across the creek

Cross the Nyali Bridge for Haller Park, which is the most interesting thing on the mainland and not what it sounds like. The cement works at Bamburi spent decades digging limestone out of an old coral shelf and left behind a landscape of bare rock and salt water. From the early 1970s an agronomist called Rene Haller began replanting it, starting with the few tree species that would tolerate the conditions and building a soil from scratch with millipedes.

What grew is now a forest of about 75 hectares with giraffe, hippo, buffalo, eland, waterbuck, crocodiles and a great many birds in it. Feeding times for the giraffes and hippos are posted at the gate and are the reason to arrive early. It is a rehabilitation project that turned into a park rather than a zoo built on purpose, and the difference is visible in how the place is laid out.

That leaves the afternoon for the airport or the station, both of which sit off the island and both of which need more time than the distance suggests. If you are heading south to Diani instead, the Likoni ferry queue is the thing that will decide your day, so go for it early.

  1. 09:00

    Haller Park

    Leisure

    Ticketed, open from morning, and best at the posted giraffe and hippo feeding times. Two hours covers the whole circuit on foot.

  2. 13:00

    Onward to the airport, the station or the coast

    Travel

    Allow ninety minutes to Moi International or Mombasa Terminus at Miritini, and considerably more if the Likoni ferry is involved.

With more time: With a full day rather than a morning, the Bamburi forest trails next door have marked walking and cycling routes from 3.5 to 10 km through the same replanted woodland, and Nguuni sanctuary in the hills behind holds giraffe and oryx with far fewer visitors.

Before you go

Getting in and out

Moi International Airport sits at Changamwe, about 6 km west of the island, and takes flights from Nairobi in around 45 minutes as well as seasonal charters and scheduled services from Europe and the Gulf. Kenya Airways and the low-cost carriers run the Nairobi route several times a day.

The better way to arrive is the standard gauge railway. The morning express from Nairobi takes about four and a half hours and crosses Tsavo, so you may well see elephant from the window. It arrives at Mombasa Terminus at Miritini, on the mainland, and you need a taxi or tuk-tuk for the last stretch onto the island. Book several days ahead.

Mombasa is an island, joined to the mainland by the Nyali Bridge to the north, the Makupa causeway to the west and the Likoni ferry to the south. The ferry is free on foot, runs constantly and is the way to the south coast beaches at Tiwi and Diani, but it is also the single worst traffic bottleneck in Kenya, so leave a wide margin if you have a flight.

Where to stay

The island is where the history is, and staying in or beside the old town means walking to the fort, hearing the call to prayer and eating where the city eats. Choices are limited and mostly modest, and the streets are quiet after dark in a way that suits some visitors and not others.

Nyali, immediately north across the bridge, has most of the comfortable hotels, the beach and a ten minute drive back to Fort Jesus. It is the usual compromise and it works well for three days.

Diani, an hour or more beyond the Likoni crossing, has the best known beach on the Kenyan coast and is a poor base for the city. Go there afterwards rather than trying to do both from one hotel.

Getting around

Tuk-tuks are the island's default. They are cheap, everywhere, and agreed on before you get in rather than metered. Boda-boda motorcycle taxis are faster and considerably more dangerous. Matatus run fixed routes for very little money and are not comfortable.

The fort and the lanes behind it are one walk, and the walk is the point: the lanes are too narrow for cars in places and the doors and balconies only work at walking pace. Everything else on these three days needs a vehicle.

Traffic laws are treated as suggestions and the roads are busy, so cross carefully and do not hire a car unless you have driven in East Africa before. A driver for a half day costs little and removes the problem.

Heat, dress and safety

It is hot and humid all year, hottest from December to March, with the long rains in April and May bringing heavy afternoon downpours. July and August are the coolest and driest months and the most comfortable for walking around the old town.

Mombasa is a majority Muslim city and the old town is a residential quarter, not a museum. Covered shoulders and knees are the courteous minimum for both men and women, and it matters more during Ramadan, when many restaurants close during daylight. Ask before photographing people.

Take a taxi or tuk-tuk after dark rather than walking, particularly in the centre and on the beaches, and keep phones and cameras out of sight in crowds. Daytime in the old town and around the fort is relaxed and well used by locals.

Mombasa rewards patience rather than a checklist. The fort takes a morning, the old town takes as long as you let it, and the rest of the pleasure is incidental: the dhow rigging on the creek, the smell of cloves and diesel, the ships turning into the harbour while people eat ice cream on the cliff above them.

From here the coast opens up in both directions. South past the Likoni ferry are Tiwi and Diani, white sand and reef and not much else to do, which is the point. North are Kilifi, Watamu and Malindi, and beyond them the flight to Lamu. Inland, the road and the railway run back through Tsavo, where the elephants are red with dust and the lions have a reputation earned in 1898.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Mombasa worth visiting, or should I go straight to the beach?
Go to both, and do the city first. Fort Jesus and the old town are the oldest quarter of the oldest city in Kenya and take a full day between them, and two nights on the island is enough to see them properly. Then move to Diani or Watamu with the history already behind you.
How do I get from Nairobi to Mombasa?
The standard gauge railway is the best answer: about four and a half hours on the morning express, through Tsavo, for a fraction of the flight price. Book several days ahead because it sells out. Flying takes 45 minutes and lands you 6 km from the island.
Is Mombasa safe?
The old town, the fort and the waterfront are relaxed by day and well used by residents. After dark, take a taxi or tuk-tuk rather than walking, particularly in the centre and along the beaches, and keep valuables out of sight in crowds. Ordinary caution rather than anything special is what the city asks for.
What should I wear?
Mombasa is a mostly Muslim city and the old town is somebody's neighbourhood. Shoulders and knees covered is the courteous default for everyone, and beachwear away from the beach is not appreciated. Loose cotton, because it is humid all year.
When is the best time to go?
July to October is dry and comparatively cool, and January and February are hot, bright and busy. The long rains from late March into May bring heavy afternoon storms, which makes the old town walk difficult but empties the hotels and halves the prices.
Can I use this as the start of a longer trip?
Yes. Copy the three days and add the coast: Diani south of the ferry, or Watamu and Malindi north, or the flight up to Lamu, which is the Swahili town Mombasa would be if it had never been rebuilt.