The Nigerian city Lagos is known to be the largest city in Africa. Tourism appears to have only a secondary (albeit booming) sidebar in the more business-oriented hotel industry. This means that you will find plenty of quality accommodation, but you need to do some research and it is best to listen to the advice of the locals in order to find the best activities to meet your wishes in Lagos.
The city’s internationally renowned art venues are thriving, with many galleries and cultural centers to visit, and live music and dance performances are frequently performed throughout Lagos. This means that tourists who love music and art will find Lagos an incredible source of entertainment and inspiration, day and night.
If you are planning your next trip to Lagos these are the main tourist attractions:
National Museum of Nigeria
In 1957 during the British colony, Kenneth Murray – an English artist and archaeologist, founded the National Museum of Nigeria in Lagos. The National Museum of Nigeria has an impressive collection of Nigerian art such as objects of
ceramics, monuments, statues, inscriptions, ethnographic exhibitions, and so on. Whatever the reason you have to visit Lagos, the museum is a place not to be missed in any form.
The National Museum most likely contains the largest collection of African art on this continent:
over 600 collections of art objects from the contemporary era alone, without mentioning the others.
Moreover, the National Museum has hosted the Virtual Museum of Nigerian Modern Art, the first website of its kind in the world, where many objects from the vast art collection of this grandiose museum in Lagos are exhibited.
Undoubtedly the most important object belonging to Nigerian art is a human terracotta head, which dates back to before our era somewhere between 900 and 200, being part of the Nok culture that originally appeared in Nigeria, around 1,000 BC, but which disappeared in 300 BC. due to unknown reasons. The National Museum of Lagos is a place where you can find a lot of interesting information about the history and culture of Nigeria, but also about how this huge country managed to withstand colonial assaults.
Tafawa Balewa Building
Tafawa Balewa is a building in Lagos, Nigeria, that was originally built to house the Prime Minister’s headquarters. It was founded in 1963 and today is one of the most important tourist attractions, being in first place in this regard according to many tourists.
Many people choose to visit Tafawa Balewa because the building has beautiful architecture, specific to the period of the middle of the twentieth century, but also because it is located in the heart of Lagos, nearby there are many opportunities for leisure, but also accommodation possibilities for any person who comes to this special city.
One thing to keep in mind when passing through Lagos is that the internet speed is quite low, especially compared to Europe. So, if you want to spend time on social media or relax by accessing live games, such as online casino, there is the possibility to run slower.
Tafawa Balewa is today a hall that can be rented by anyone, with one of the largest halls available to the public in Lagos. However, tourists choose to come to this area not only to admire the architecture of the structure of Tafawa Balewa but also to admire the inner courtyard, extremely special in appearance, which was a place of relaxation for the Prime Minister of Nigeria in the middle of the 20th century.
So Tafawa Balewa is primarily a historical monument, as it marks the end of a colonial era that ruled these lands for many centuries. Then, due to the exterior architecture but also the interior one, tourists come in large numbers to this tourist point.
Lagos National Theater
There are many reasons why Lagos is believed to be one of the fastest growing economies cities in the world. One building that exemplifies this growth is the National Theater, a construction that resembles more the innovations of developed civilizations in Europe than in Africa. However, the National Theater has been voted one of the most important theaters in the world, not just in Nigeria, due to its huge cultural diversity.
The Lagos National Theater offers performances in French and African, but each venue in the huge hall can accommodate about 5,000 people with headphones, where the event is translated into 8 different languages.
From the point of view of art, the National Theater is the most important center in Nigeria, being built in 1976.
The National Theater was built especially to host the 1977 edition, in both projects putting imprint Leopold Senghor, a Senegalese poet and politician (became, between 1960 and 1980, the president of Senegal). Leopold Senghor is believed to have been one of the greatest intellectuals that Africa had in the XX century.
The National Theater has a futuristic design in which, if we look from the North, we can see a shape with an ascending curve, while in the South or East we see a descending one.
From the outside, the National Theater looks like an ultramodern stadium in Europe but of course, in a much smaller size. Besides this building, tourists and locals come to this area to stay in the surrounding park, where you can visit various monuments, the fountain and so on.
Lagos National Theater is a place not to be missed, especially if you are a fan of modern and contemporary architecture, but also of African culture.
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