Visit the old town of Merca

Old Red Sea port with Ottoman ruins.

The cape medieval sailors called the point of no return.

Renaissance sea fortress at Helsingor — the Elsinore of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Swahili island town of donkeys, dhows and carved doorways.

Al-Balad’s coral-stone merchant houses with carved wooden balconies, a UNESCO gateway for centuries of Mecca pilgrims.

White-sand beach south of Mogadishu, popular for Friday picnics.

Vivid 5,000-year-old cave paintings.

Seventeen kilometres of white sand and casuarina trees south of Mombasa, with kite-surfing and colobus monkeys in the trees.