Fort Dorothea, Akwidaa

Fort Dorothea is a ruined fortification at Akwidaa (also spelled Akwida), a small fishing village in the Ahanta West Municipal District of Ghana's Western Region. The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board lists it as a National Monument under National Monuments Instrument EI 42, 1972, and its ruins were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 together with other Ghanaian forts and castles.

The site has a layered history. The Brandenburg Company built a lodge at Akwida, east of Cape Three Points, in 1683; according to Albert van Dantzig it was originally a small triangular building on a promontory at the end of a peninsula between the mouth of the Suni River and the sea, which gave it considerable natural protection. The lodge was captured in 1690 and enlarged into a fort by the Dutch, who renamed it Fort Dorothea. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Akwidaa was the smaller of the two forts making up the German colony of the Brandenburger Gold Coast; the fort was occupied by the Dutch from 1687 to 1698, and the Brandenburgers sold it in 1718. It survives today as a ruin.

For a visitor, the appeal is twofold: a glimpse into that history, and the view. The Ghana Tourism Authority notes that visitors hike up to Fort Dorothea, and that from the top of Dorothea's rounded rocky hill there are views of the surrounding area. A first-hand visitor account from December 2014 describes the fort as very much overgrown, with ruins dating from the 1680s.

One practical point matters above all. The land around the ruins is considered sacred ground, serving as a cemetery for the Akwidaa royal family, so permission must be sought before trekking to the site. That same visitor account describes hiring a guide and paying a small amount to the interim chief of the village to obtain permission.

Akwidaa lies 12 km west of Dixcove and 6 km east of Cape Three Points — roughly a 30-minute drive from Dixcove, an hour from Agona, and an hour and a half from Takoradi. By private vehicle from Takoradi's Kwame Nkrumah Roundabout, take the Airport Road exit beside the Goil petrol station, drive about 30 minutes to Agona, turn left at the Agona roundabout onto the Dixcove road, and at Dixcove ask for the Akwidaa road, then continue straight through villages to Old Akwidaa. By public transport, tro-tros run from Takoradi (West End near Tarkwa station, or the Goil petrol station at Kwame Nkrumah Roundabout) to Agona, where regular tro-tros and taxis continue to Akwidaa via Dixcove.