There is no stone, no tree and no river course that doesn't have a story to tell. But if there are no people to interpret that story, it will stay unknown forever. So, while there are many places in South Africa that have seen momentous events, only some of them are sufficiently documented.
The best known is Robben Island, where so much of the nation's history was nurtured, and the bustling area of Soweto where, in 1976, pupils revolted against the apartheid state.
Well known South African historical sites, museums and monuments include Rhodes Memorial, the Afrikaans Language Monument in Paarl and the Voortrekker Monument, which dominates the Pretoria skyline. Many monuments and historical sites have on-site museums but there are also many excellent stand-alone museums.
From the usual natural history and cultural history museums to the rather unusual ones, you'll find something to inform, entertain, amuse and enlighten you.
Some of the more offbeat museums include a butter museum, a tractor museum, a surfing museum, a whaling museum, a shell museum and an angling museum. Probably the most important museums though, are the Robben Island Museum, the Apartheid Museum and the Transvaal Museum of Natural History.
A monument to a language? Well, it's not that often a new one is created. Unveiled in 1975, the Taalmonument (for Afrikaans) pokes up into t...
Founded in 1825, the South African Museum is the oldest museum in sub-Saharan Africa. The planetarium is adjacent to the main museum buildin...
This Bloemfontein museum commemorates the 26 000 Boer women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War...
Despite the colonial overtones, Rhodes Memorial is a nice little detour along Cape Town, situated in the suburb of Rosebank. It offers the ...
Historically speaking, Mossel Bay is the place where Bartolomeu Dias first planted his European-shod feet on African soil. He took this gian...
The Boer War Blockhouse located in Laingsburg at the Geelbek River railway bridge was built in 1902 by the British....