Set at the very western tip of the African continent and surrounded by water on three sides, Dakar is quite simply West Africa\u2019s most spectacular city. In centuries past, the Mali Empire (of which Senegal was a part) was known as the Bright Country for its wide-open skies and savannahs \u2013 and while wide-open spaces are a rarity in metropolitan Dakar today, the city still shimmers in a crisp oceanic light, bathing all corners of the Lego-block cityscape in a dazzling glare.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the independent-minded L\u00e9bou fishers and farmers who inhabited the peninsula for centuries (and continue to retain great influence), the first European presence in what would become Dakar didn\u2019t arrive until 1857 \u2013 more than four centuries after the Portuguese set up their first trading post just across the water on the island of Gor\u00e9e. At the time, Ndakaaru was a village of barely 300 souls; within 50 years it officially became capital of France\u2019s vast West African holdings, and shortly after, the terminus for the famed Dakar-Bamako railway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perched at Africa\u2019s westernmost point, cosmopolitan Dakar is a friendly, frenetic, and unforgettable introduction to West Africa, with some of the region\u2019s best food and most hard-hitting history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":2459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33],"tags":[7,14,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-2462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-travel","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-travel"},"yoast_head":"\n