Apia holds more history per square kilometre than any capital its size: pre-Christian star mounds, German and New Zealand colonial rule, Robert Louis Stevenson's tomb above the town, and the Mau movement that carried Samoa to independence in 1962.
A pre-Christian star mound — a tia seu lupe, raised for the chiefly sport of pigeon-snaring — sits behind the Catholic mission at Letava, Lotopa. The stone platform dates to roughly 1100–1400 AD and is Samoa's most accessible ancient monument.
Housed in the 1907 German colonial schoolhouse, the national museum covers tatau, ancient navigation, the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed a fifth of all Samoans, and the Mau. Open Monday to Friday 09:00–16:00, closed weekends.
The low peninsula west of town was the seat of Samoan kingship long before Germany raised its flag here in 1900. Tombs of Malietoa Laupepa, Malietoa Tanumafili II and the Tupua line line the road beside the old Fale Fono and the Independence Memorial.
London Missionary Society preacher John Williams landed in Samoa in 1830 and was killed on Erromango in 1839. His remains lie beneath the memorial slab outside the white Congregational church on Beach Road, the mother church of Samoan Christianity.
Stevenson built Vailima in 1890 and died here in December 1894. The restored villa keeps his writing room, Fanny's tapa room and the only fireplace ever built in Samoa. Guided tours hourly, Mon–Fri 09:00–16:00, Saturday until 12:00.
Samoan chiefs cut the Road of Loving Hearts overnight to carry Tusitala, the teller of tales, to the summit. The concrete tomb bears his Requiem and looks straight down over Apia Harbour. The steep track takes 30–45 minutes each way.
The timber courthouse of 1902 served the German administration, the New Zealand mandate and then independent Samoa's first parliament. The clock tower across Beach Road began as a memorial to Samoan soldiers of the First World War.
Aggie Grey sold hamburgers and coffee to US Marines on this spot from 1942 and turned the trade into the Pacific's best-known hotel, host to Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper. Now the Sheraton Samoa, the original open fale bar survives.
One of only a handful of continental Bahá'í temples in the world, this nine-sided dome above Apia was dedicated in 1984 by Malietoa Tanumafili II — the only reigning head of state ever to become a Bahá'í. Grounds open daily 06:00–18:00.
Vaimoso was the headquarters of the Mau, the non-violent movement whose slogan was Samoa mo Samoa. Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III was shot by New Zealand police on Black Saturday, 28 December 1929; his tomb and the Mau memorial stand in the village.
Behind the Tourism Authority fale, master carvers, siapo bark-cloth makers and tatau artists demonstrate crafts that predate European contact, closing with an umu cooked in front of you. Sessions run Tuesday to Thursday, 10:30–14:00.
The public library honours Olaf Frederick Nelson, the part-Samoan trader twice exiled for bankrolling the Mau. The stretch of Beach Road outside, between the library and the Chief Post Office, is where the 1929 shooting took place.