Attraction

1. Apartheid Museum

History museumOrmonde

The Apartheid Museum beside Gold Reef City tells the story of the rise and fall of apartheid through film, photographs, documents and a striking race-classified entrance.

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Attraction

2. Table Mountain

Mountain, cableway and viewpointTable Mountain National Park

Cape Town's flat-topped mountain rises above the city, reached by a cableway with rotating cars from Tafelberg Road or on foot via routes such as Platteklip Gorge.

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Attraction

3. Constitution Hill

Former prison, museum and Constitutional CourtBraamfontein

Constitution Hill is a former prison complex in Braamfontein, now a museum and home of South Africa's Constitutional Court, where Mandela, Gandhi and many activists were held.

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Attraction

4. Robben Island Museum

Heritage site and museumV&A Waterfront

Ferries from the V&A Waterfront take visitors to Robben Island, the UNESCO-listed former prison where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail.

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Attraction

5. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

Botanical gardenNewlands

Founded in 1913 on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch displays South African plants, from proteas and fynbos to cycads, across landscaped gardens and trails.

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Attraction

6. Mandela House

Historic house museumOrlando West, Soweto

Mandela House on Vilakazi Street is the small red-brick Soweto home where Nelson Mandela lived from 1946 to 1962, now a museum of his life and family.

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Attraction

7. Cape Point

Nature reserve and lighthouse viewpointCape of Good Hope, Table Mountain National Park

At the tip of the Cape Peninsula, Cape Point combines sea cliffs, two lighthouses and fynbos within the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park.

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Attraction

8. Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum

History museum and memorialOrlando West, Soweto

The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Orlando West tells the story of the 16 June 1976 Soweto Uprising and the students who were shot during it.

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Attraction

9. Boulders Beach Penguin Colony

Penguin colony and beachSimon's Town

In Simon's Town, boardwalks and sheltered coves at Boulders let visitors watch a colony of endangered African penguins that began with two breeding pairs in 1982.

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Attraction

10. Johannesburg Zoo

ZooParkview

Johannesburg Zoo on Jan Smuts Avenue has been open since 1904 and houses more than 2,000 animals of over 300 species in leafy grounds beside Zoo Lake.

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Attraction

11. V&A Waterfront

Harbour and waterfront districtV&A Waterfront

Cape Town's working harbour has been redeveloped into a waterfront district with shops, restaurants, hotels, the Zeitz MOCAA museum and the Robben Island ferry terminal.

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Attraction

12. Johannesburg Botanical Garden

Botanical garden and parkEmmarentia

Johannesburg Botanical Garden in Emmarentia has terraced rose gardens, herb and succulent gardens and wide lawns that run down to Emmarentia Dam.

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Attraction

13. Zeitz MOCAA

Contemporary art museumV&A Waterfront

Zeitz MOCAA shows contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora inside a 1920s grain silo converted by Heatherwick Studio and opened in 2017.

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Attraction

14. Castle of Good Hope

17th-century fort and museumCity Centre

Built by the Dutch East India Company between 1666 and 1679, the five-bastioned Castle of Good Hope is South Africa's oldest surviving colonial building.

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Attraction

15. Gold Reef City

Theme park and gold mine tourOrmonde

Gold Reef City is a gold rush themed amusement park built on an old mine in Ormonde, with roller coasters, family rides and an underground mine tour.

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Attraction

16. District Six Museum

History museumCity Centre

Housed in a former Methodist church, the District Six Museum tells the story of the inner-city community forcibly removed under apartheid from the 1960s onwards.

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Attraction

17. Origins Centre

Museum of human origins and rock artBraamfontein

The Origins Centre at Wits University explores the story of human origins in Africa and holds a large collection of southern African rock art.

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Attraction

18. Groot Constantia

Historic wine estateConstantia

Founded in 1685 by Simon van der Stel, Groot Constantia is South Africa's oldest wine estate, with tastings, cellar tours and a Cape Dutch manor house museum.

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Attraction

19. Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden

National botanical gardenRoodepoort

Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden in Roodepoort covers 300 hectares of indigenous gardens and veld below a waterfall where Verreaux's eagles nest on the cliffs.

View details — Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden