Pretoria
The Administrative Capital, And A Quieter, Greener And Far Older Feeling City Than Johannesburg Fifty Kilometres South: Herbert Baker'S Union Buildings On A Terraced Hillside Where Mandela Was Inaugurated, The Voortrekker Monument And Freedom Park Facing Each Other Across A Valley With Two Irreconcilable Versions Of The Same History, And Seventy Thousand Jacarandas That Turn The Whole City Purple In October · Pretoria, Gauteng
Pretoria is fifty kilometres from Johannesburg and nothing like it. It is the administrative capital, which makes it a city of government buildings, embassies, universities and civil servants rather than mines and money, and it is older, greener, lower and considerably quieter. Herbert Baker's Union Buildings stand on a terraced hillside above the city with gardens open to anyone - this is where Mandela was inaugurated in 1994 and where a nine-metre statue of him now stands with his arms out. Across a valley to the south, two monuments face each other with irreconcilable versions of the same history: the Voortrekker Monument, a granite block commemorating the Afrikaner migration of the 1830s, and Freedom Park, built after 1994 to name the dead of every conflict including those the other one leaves out. In late October seventy thousand jacarandas turn the whole city purple. It is the most underrated city in the country.
Fifty kilometres north of Johannesburg in the Apies River valley, with the Union Buildings above the city and the Voortrekker Monument on the ridge south, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
A city. The UNION BUILDINGS' TERRACED GARDENS ARE OPEN GROUND and free, and the building itself is a working seat of government rather than a visitor attraction - you walk the gardens and the Mandela statue, not the interior. The Voortrekker Monument and Freedom Park each keep daylight hours with their own tickets, and both deserve a couple of hours; Freedom Park's guided route is the better way to see it. Church Square, the Kruger House and the museums keep daylight hours and most close one day a week. THE JACARANDA BLOOM IS LATE OCTOBER AND VARIES BY A FORTNIGHT either way, so it cannot be promised. The Gautrain links Pretoria to Johannesburg and OR Tambo airport in under an hour and is the easy way between them. Load-shedding affects the city as it does Johannesburg.