GAUTENG
Johannesburg & Soweto
The city that gold built and apartheid shaped. Soweto and the Apartheid Museum together make the most important half-day in the country.
Best time to visitAll year
Johannesburg is not a pretty city and is not trying to be. It is the economic engine of the continent, and its interest is historical and human rather than scenic. Most visitors pass through on the way to Kruger; the ones who stay a day are usually glad they did.
The essential pairing is the Apartheid Museum and Soweto. The museum is unflinching and superbly built. Soweto is a city of well over a million people, and a guided visit takes in Vilakazi Street — the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace laureates — the Hector Pieterson Memorial, and Regina Mundi church.
Maboneng and Braamfontein in the inner city have become genuinely good for food and design. Both are best visited with someone who knows which blocks to walk.