Accra's history runs from Ga sea shrines older than any fort to Danish castles, mission graveyards and the crossroads where three ex-servicemen were shot in 1948. Three days of walking Ga Mashie, Osu and Teshie, roughly in chronological order.
Built by the Dutch in 1649 as Fort Crèvecoeur, rebuilt by the British in 1868 and used as a prison until 1993 — Nkrumah was held here in 1950. The museum covers detention and the slave trade. Open Mon–Fri 09:00–16:30.
Seat of the Ga Mantse, paramount chief of the Ga since the 17th-century move down from Ayawaso to the coast. The 2019 enstoolment of King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II ended a 15-year vacancy in the stool.
Ghana's oldest museum opened on 5 March 1957, the eve of independence. After seven years closed for structural work it reopened in 2022 with Asante goldweights, Akan drums and Kintampo-era stone tools.
Compound of the Nai Wulomo, chief priest of the Ga sea god Nai and the oldest surviving office in Accra, older than any of the forts. The 30-day drumming ban and the Homowo calendar are still declared here.
Danish-built from 1661 on land bought from the Osu chief, later a slaving post, British colonial seat and Ghana's presidency until 2013. It is now a museum with restored governors' rooms and dungeons.
Basel missionaries settled Osu in 1828 and laid out the Salem quarter of schools and mission houses around this church. The old graveyard holds Danish traders and the West Indian families recruited in 1843.
Du Bois moved into this house in 1961 at Nkrumah's invitation to edit the Encyclopedia Africana and died here on 27 August 1963. His study, library and the garden mausoleum he shares with Shirley Graham are open.
On 28 February 1948 police fired on unarmed ex-servicemen marching to the Castle with a petition, killing Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey. The riots that followed began the road to 1957.
Seth Kane Kwei carved his first figurative coffin here in the 1950s after a palanquin commission went unused. His descendants still build fish, cocoa pods and aeroplanes for Ga funerals, alongside museum orders.
Opened in 1924, Makola became the base of the market queens who controlled Accra's food trade — the reason the AFRC dynamited it in August 1979. Traders rebuilt within months and the lanes still follow the old grid.
Restored 1850s home of the Tabon, Afro-Brazilian returnees who landed at Jamestown in 1836 after buying their freedom in Bahia. Family photographs, land records and the Tabon Mantse's line fill two small rooms.
The Ga quarter that produced Azumah Nelson, Ike Quartey and generations before them, where boxing grew out of asafo company rivalry and dockworkers' fights. Gyms under corrugated roofs fill from late afternoon.