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Apartheid Museum
The Apartheid Museum details South Africa's era of segregation with chilling accuracy. With plenty of attention to detail and an unsparing emphasis on the inhuman philosophy of apartheid - visitors are handed a card stating their race when they arrive and are required to enter the exhibit through their allotted gate - this remains one of South Africa's most evocative museums.
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Constitution Hill
Inspiring, impressive Constitution Hill is slowly becoming one of the city's - if not the country's - chief tourist attractions. Built within the ramparts of the Old Fort, which dates from 1892 and was once a notorious prison, the development focuses on South Africa's new Constitutional Court. Ruling on constitutional and human-rights matters, the court itself is a very real symbol of the changing South Africa.
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Gold Reef City
Gold Reef City has one foot in the past, providing a light-hearted and reasonably rip-roaring take on gold-rush Jo'burg. Ninety per cent Disneyland clone, this theme park only offers a token nod to historical authenticity, but provides ample means for filling a spare afternoon, especially if you have kids in tow.
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Hector Pieterson Memorial
North of Vilakazi St is Soweto's showcase, Hector Pieterson Sq. Named after the 13-year-old who was shot dead in the run-up to the Soweto uprising , the square now features the poignant Hector Pieterson Memorial and the excellent Hector Pieterson Museum, which offers an insight into Sowetan life and the history of the independence struggle. From the square, a line of shrubs leads up Moema St to the site where he was shot outside the school.
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Johannesburg Art Gallery
On the Noord St side of Joubert Park (itself a no-go area) is the Johannesburg Art Gallery. This place has a reputable collection of European and South African landscape and figurative paintings, and several exhibitions featuring more-adventurous contemporary work and long-overdue retrospectives of black artists.
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Johannesburg Zoo
The Johannesburg Zoo has a reasonable array of the fierce and the furry. It seems rather bizarre going to a zoo in Africa but it has a particularly interesting wild-dog enclosure and kids love it. There are also night tours (around R60 ) three times a week (no children); book through the zoo.
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Mandela & Tambo Law Offices
You might like to pass by the building that housed the former Mandela & Tambo Law Offices where, in the 1950s, these two famous men set up this pioneering law firm. There's not much in the way of tourist facilities here, but moves are being made to set something up.
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Mandela Museum
The first stop on most tours is the Mandela Museum, just off Vilakazi St. Nelson Mandela shared this tiny home with his first wife, Evelyn, and it is filled with fascinating photographs and clutter. Among the exhibits is a letter from the State of Michigan asking George Bush Senior to apologise for the role the CIA played in Mandela's 1962 arrest. Needless to say, it never did.
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Montecasino
Montecasino consistently draws more visitors than perhaps any other attraction in Jo'burg. Based around a large casino, this spectacularly cheesy development features an entire 'Tuscan village under one roof', with a menagerie of concrete doves, restaurants, shops, bars, the Pieter Toerien Theatre and the pleasant Montecasino Bird Gardens, where you can get a blast of country air in the heart of the city.
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Museum Africa
At the heart of the cultural precinct, Museum Africa is housed in the impressive old Bree St fruit market, next to the Market Theatre complex. The superb exhibition on the Treason Trials (1956-61), which featured most of the important figures in the 'new' South Africa, is a must-see for anyone looking for a better understanding of the country's more recent history.
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Nelson Mandela Bridge
Looming over Newtown is the Nelson Mandela Bridge. Officially opened by Nelson Mandela on 20 July 2003 (two days after his 85th birthday), the 295m, cable-stayed bridge is the longest of its kind in Southern Africa. It isn't the most impressive structure in Jo'burg, but it is an enduring symbol of efforts to resurrect long-forgotten sections of the city and an ongoing source of pride.
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Oppenheimer Tower
The Oppenheimer Tower was erected in gratitude to the Chairman of the Anglo-American Corporation, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, who in 1956 organised a loan from the Chamber of Mines to build 14,000 homes, improving living standards for thousands of Sowetans.
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Regina Mundi Church
Down Klipspruit Valley Rd is the Regina Mundi Church, which, as a community meeting place, was central to the struggle against apartheid. The police often retaliated and you can still see bullet holes in the ceiling to the right of the main altar. The right-hand 'community' altar rail is also chipped from where the butt of a police rifle smashed it.
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SAB Centenary Centre
The SAB Centenary Centre delves into that other great South African pursuit: beer drinking. It unlocks the secrets of the country's brewing industries and there is a re-creation of a 1965 Soweto shebeen (unlicensed bar), which is all heavenly for appreciators of liquid amber.
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Sci-Bono Discovery Centre
In the Electric Workshop building, you'll find the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre. The space includes a science museum and an interactive learning experience, and is an excellent way to keep the kids occupied for a couple of hours.
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South African National Museum of Military History
Perhaps it's South Africa's fascination with guns, or maybe it's the country's bloody history, but every year the South African National Museum of Military History is one of Jo'burg's most popular museums. If warfare is your thing you'll find this museum fascinating. You can see artefacts and implements of destruction from the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War through to WWII.
Read more about South African National Museum of Military History
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Telkom Joburg Tower
Crowned by the looming, 269m Telkom Tower, Hillbrow was once among the liveliest and most interesting suburbs in the city. It bore witness to the cracks opening in the shell of apartheid when it was designated the nation's first 'Grey Area' - a zone where blacks and whites could live side by side. These days, however, it also has a reputation for very real lawlessness and a trip into its guts, without an extremely savvy guide, is not recommended.
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Top of Africa
To get an overview of the hub of Jo'burg, take the lift to the Top of Africa. From the quiet remoteness of the observation deck, the sprawling city seems positively serene. The entrance is via a special lift one floor below street level and you can admire the views over lunch at the Marung restaurant.
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Turbine Hall
Much of the area around Mary Fitzgerald Sq was once taken up by a giant power station - builders keep running into the foundations of the colossal cooling towers. The huge Turbine Hall, next to the SAB World of Beer, is one of the city's more impressive buildings - a kind of Battersea Power Station for Jo'burg. Although derelict, the fantastic interior was used to launch the New Mini and there are several, tentative plans to transform the space.
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University of Witwatersrand
The suburb of Braamfontein's focus is the University of Witwatersrand, more commonly known as Wits (pronounced vits) University, and there are plans to transform this currently quiet area into a lively student ghetto. Wits University is the largest English-language university in the country, with more than 20,000 students. It's an attractive campus.
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