Praia rewards travellers who walk and eat where locals do. Beaches, lighthouses and colonial lanes cost nothing, market fruit runs 80 CVE a kilo, and a shared minibus reaches UNESCO Cidade Velha for 200 CVE each way.
Cape Verde's national culture palace on the Plateau runs free rotating exhibitions of Cape Verdean painting, photography and basketwork, with an open concert-hall lobby. Weekdays roughly 08:00-17:30, no ticket desk at all.
The clifftop path past the Diogo Gomes monument drops 40 m to Porto da Praia, opening free views over container ships, the Gamboa coast and the open Atlantic. Shaded benches, unfenced, accessible at any hour.
Praia's cleanest swimmable beach lies 2 km west of the Plateau: pale sand, weekend lifeguard flags and free access with no sunbed racket. A freshwater rinse costs about 50 CVE, and a Strela beer at the beach bar runs 150 CVE.
The 1881 lighthouse on Ponta Temerosa headland is a free 30-minute walk over black lava flats from Prainha. Roofless keeper's quarters frame the sunset, and the whole promontory is unticketed and usually empty.
The 1920s covered market in the middle of the Plateau sells papaya, mango and bananas trucked from Santiago's interior valleys at 80-150 CVE per kilo, plus 100 CVE bags of roasted peanuts. Daily from about 06:30, free entry.
The terrace café on the Plateau's main square plates cachupa refogada — stewed corn and beans topped with fried egg and sausage — for roughly 450 CVE, and pastel com diabo dentro at about 60 CVE each. Cheapest sit-down lunch up here.
The fish hall below the Plateau takes the afternoon catch straight off Gamboa's boats: tuna, wahoo, garoupa and moray at roughly 400-700 CVE per kilo. The women gut and fillet at no charge while you wait.
After dark the Gamboa seafront strip fills with charcoal braziers selling grilled mackerel or tuna with rice and beans for 300-400 CVE, plus 100 CVE shots of sugarcane grogue, eaten standing at plastic tables.
Shared hiace minibuses leave the Sucupira terminal for Cidade Velha whenever they fill, covering the 15 km coastal road for about 200 CVE. The 1495 Rosário church, among the oldest colonial churches anywhere, is free to enter.
Rua Banana is a lane of thatched stone houses claimed as the oldest colonial street in the tropics, running up from the beach to the 1520 marble pelourinho where enslaved people were publicly punished. Both open, both free.
The 1590 hilltop fort was built to stop Francis Drake repeating his sack of the town. Restored ramparts and cannon look down the Ribeira Grande valley to the ocean; entry runs about 400 CVE and the climb takes 20 sweaty minutes.
Back in the capital, this hillside square in Praia's residential quarter catches the last light over Prainha bay. Local families gather at dusk, kiosks sell 60 CVE coffee, and the terrace costs nothing to sit on.