Brazzaville was founded in 1880 when Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza signed a treaty with the Bateke Makoko, and from 1940 to 1943 it served as the capital of Free France. Three days trace that arc through mausoleums, cathedrals, museums and old quarters.
Congo's national museum on Avenue Amilcar Cabral holds Bateke and Kongo ritual sculpture, nkisi power figures, Vili ivories and pre-colonial iron currency from the Congo Basin kingdoms. Open Tue–Sat, roughly 09:00–17:00; labelling is in French only.
Built 1943–49 by French architect Roger Erell under Governor-General Éboué, the green-tiled parabolic vaults were designed as a fusion of Gothic ribbing and Central African forms. Shelled during the 1997 civil war and restored in 2011.
A white Carrara marble mausoleum opened in 2006 holding the remains of the Italian-French explorer who founded the city in 1880, plus his wife and four children. Displays reproduce the treaty he signed with the Makoko Iloo I.
The 1940s residence built for Free French administration on the river bluff, still the French ambassador's home. Its raised colonial verandas and river outlook show how the wartime capital's elite quarter was laid out above Ngala's rapids.
Founded in 1951 by French painter Pierre Lods, this studio created the stick-figure style that became Congo's best-known modern art. Original members trained here; the courtyard workshop and small gallery still operate daily.
Marks the January–February 1944 Brazzaville Conference, where de Gaulle and Free French governors set out reforms that began the end of empire in French Africa. Éboué, the Guyanese-born governor-general who rallied Chad to de Gaulle, is honoured here.
The tomb of the Marxist president assassinated on 18 March 1977, on the site of the old army headquarters where he was shot. His death triggered the killing of Cardinal Émile Biayenda and ex-president Massamba-Débat days later.
The presidential palace complex built during the socialist Parti Congolais du Travail era, damaged in the 1997 war between Sassou-Nguesso's Cobras and Lissouba's Zulus, then rebuilt. The boulevard shows post-war reconstruction of the административ quarter.
The 1934 art deco terminus of the Congo-Ocean Railway to Pointe-Noire, whose construction between 1921 and 1934 killed an estimated 17,000 forced labourers. André Gide's 1927 travel writing exposed the conditions.
The first African quarter of the colonial city, laid out from 1900 when the French segregated Brazzaville into European and indigenous zones. Grid of low mudbrick and breeze-block compounds, mosques and 1950s bar-dancings still stands.
Brazzaville's oldest church, built 1892–94 by Spiritan missionaries in red brick, making it the earliest surviving European structure in the city. Its mission station trained the first Congolese clergy and stands on the original riverside settlement.
Bacongo was created in 1911 as the second segregated African quarter, settled by Lari and Kongo migrants. It became the base of André Matsoua's 1920s–30s anti-colonial movement and later of Abbé Fulbert Youlou, independence-era president.
The 106m tower completed in 1986 with Elf Aquitaine oil money was long Central Africa's tallest building, and was hit by rocket fire in the 1997 civil war. The square below carries the independence monument of 15 August 1960.