THE weather over Windhoek was bad, bad enough to compel our pilots to make an instrument approach into Hosea Kutako International. Down into the murk we went, me thinking about the mountains that reach into the sky around the city, which is why the "new" international airport was built 45km to the east, where the land begins to flatten out.

When we dropped out of the bottom of the muck, I gasped. Namibia was green. Groundwater sparkled in pools and glistened on rocks. The ground flashed by below in an emerald strip and soft rain was falling over the city. Green and cool - February is clearly the right time to visit.

There are two things that always surprise me about Windhoek. One is that it has water, thanks to the nearby hot springs; the other that, despite the modern buildings and a proliferation of beat-up diesel bakkies and two-tone bush shirts, its languor is straight out of the 1950s.

Back then the city's airport was at Eros, which, as traveller and writer Pierre de Wet once wrote in a local magazine, was little more than an aerodrome served by piston-engined Dakotas and Skymasters, whose "thumping roar" would announce their arrival overhead.

"The silver DC4s and 3s had a tight turn against the mountains, having to drop like lifts to make the runway- a runway with the added hazard of grazing kudus. The local firefighters were often called out, not to battle flames, but to chase the persistent antelope."

Eros still operates as a regional airport. You can see it from the rooftop Skybar at the Hilton, a swathe of open land from which tiny silver darts launch themselves throughout the day, clawing for height to clear the mountains.

We came to Windhoek for lunch and stayed for a weekend. Most travellers bounce through on their way to somewhere else, which is unfortunate because Windhoek - "handsomely situated", as travel writer TV Bulpin succinctly describes it - has enough diversions to fill a busy weekend.

Getting your bearings

The view from the Skybar is one of the best in Windhoek. The city spreads out across the valley floor, reaching across towards a line of spooky peaks in the hazy north. From here, you see that the city is, like Rome, built on hills. Your status, as the postmodern-brutalist houses masquerading as architecture on the upper slopes of Ludwigsdorf suburb show, improves the higher up the hill you go.

Windhoek's centre is tiny with most of the action happening along Independence Avenue, the main drag. It's also safe enough to walk around but we needed a car to get to the various attractions and restaurants beyond the city limits.

Drop the bags

The Hilton Hotel, just three years old, is the capital's only five-star hotel and adds some welcome modernity to the city's skyline. The design is all clean lines and cool décor, the food is excellent. There is a spa, naturally, and a slim rooftop pool next to the Skybar. Rates from N$1357 per night. See www.hilton.com/Windhoek, tel: +264 61 296 2929.

Hit the sights

Alste Feste, the original fort built by Major Curt von Francois and his Schutztruppe in 1890, stands on the hill behind the hotel. It houses a rather tired exhibition of posters, photographs and other odds and ends celebrating Namibia's transition to democracy. Still, the building itself is very appealing in a Beau Geste sort of way. A block away is the beautiful Christus Kirche, possibly the city's most iconic landmark. I didn't go in - ogling it from the outside was enough.

The best museum in town is the TransNamib railway museum, housed on the first floor in the former offices of Windhoek's colonial railway station. The curator, Konrad Schüllenbach, presides over a varied collection of railway uniforms, ticket punches, crockery and silverware, photographs, maps, locomotive numberplates, lamps, documents, models and other ephemera from the country's railway history. Admission is N$5.

Eating and drinking

Windhoek has a capital city's share of good restaurants, and the food is not all German either. There is Ekapi at the Hilton itself, and a handful of other restaurants out in the suburbs. Two that stand out are O Portuga (Sam Nujoma Drive, Klein Windhoek), which has a loyal Angolan clientele and serves outstanding oysters, fish and espetadas; and Joe's Beerhouse (Nelson Mandela Avenue, Eros). Joe's combines a sprawling, open-air, thatched bar with German food and game, cold beer and décor consisting of a superb collection of junk scoured from around the country.

The owners are particularly proud of the Mini - now balanced over the entrance - that two Portuguese adventurers attempted to drive from Maputo to Luanda before being cruelly rebuffed at the Angolan border. The beer was icy cold and the chicken schnitzel was draped reassuringly over my plate like a massive flag.

Take a drive

The road south from Windhoek climbs through the Auas mountains and winds through rocky outcrops and spectacular fields of yellow flowers. It's an absorbing, beautiful road and if it wasn't for the fact that the land grows increasingly harsh south of Rehoboth - and if we hadn't had a dinner date back in town - we would have kept on driving.

On the way up the pass, we stopped at Heroes Acre, the imposing monument to Namibia's struggle heroes. The marble was boiling in the summer heat and even the army sentries were hiding from the sun. Still, we toiled to the viewpoint beyond the obelisk and were rewarded with a superb view of Windhoek and its enfolding mountains, darkening as an African thunderstorm roared in from the east.

Ash was a guest of the Hilton Windhoek Hotel