Pretoria, city of jacarandas

The majestic Voortrekker Monument is situated in the northern part of South Africa in the Pretoria (Tshwane) region in a nature reserve. It is a unique Monument which commemorates the Pioneer history of Southern Africa and the history of the Afrikaner and is situated in a beautiful setting.

Today it is the most visited heritage site of its kind in Gauteng and one of the top ten cultural historical visitor attractions in the country.

The great grey colossus can be seen from all directions as you approach Pretoria ... the massive Voortrekker Monument , built in honour of the Voortrekkers (Pioneers), who left the Cape Colony in their thousands between 1835 and 1854. The architect was Gerard Moerdijk and it was his ideal to design a "monument that would stand a thousand years to describe the history and the meaning of the Great Trek to its descendants."

The last house in which President Paul Kruger was to live, between 1883 and 1901, before he left South Africa for exile in Europe, the Kruger House Museum lies just a few blocks from Church Square, where his bronze statue takes centre stage facing the Palace of Justice.

The beautiful Victorian style home was interestingly built using milk instead of water for mixing the cement as the cement of the time was deemed to be of a poor quality. Paul Kruger’s home was one of the first in the city to use electricity, and he had one of the first telephones installed in Pretoria in 1891. The unpretentious home has been refurbished to reflect the time when Kruger and his second wife, Gezina Kruger, lived here and, amongst a number of bits and pieces is a knife that Oom Paul (Uncle Paul), as he was fondly known, used to amputate his thumb after a shooting incident. The lions on the verandah were given to Kruger by Barney Barnato, the mining magnate, as a birthday present in 1896.

Paul Kruger was State President of the South African Republic and was renowned internationally for his struggle for freedom from the British during the Second Boer War (1899 - 1902). Both the Kruger National Park and the Kruger-Rand coin are named after him, and today pipe manufacturers continue to produce a style called ‘Oom Paul’, that is similar to the large-bowled, full-bent shape of the pipe with which he was so often portrayed in photographs.

This part of the tour will take approximately 1 hour.

Church Square is the historic centre of the city of Pretoria , South Africa and has always been the hub of Pretoria , although it was initially called Market Square . This was where the first church, a mud-walled building, was built. It burnt down in 1882 and was replaced by a much grander structure. Open markets were regularly held in the Square and Albert Broderick, an Englishman christened Albertus Broodryk, by his Afrikaans friends and customers established himself as shopkeeper. He also ran the community’s first bar, the ‘Hole-in-the-Wall’.

Its most prominent feature is the statue of the Boer leader and president of the South African Republic Paul Kruger at its centre. Statues of four anonymous Boer citizen-sjosiers surround that of Kruger's on a lower level of the plinth.

Several historically and architecturally significant buildings surround the square: the Palace of Justice, the jos Capitol Theatre, the Tudor Chambers, the Ou Raadsaal (jos Council Chamber) and the General Post Office, which was designed by John Cleland.

The turreted Palace of Justice was the scene of arguably the most famous political trial in South Africa 's history, the Rivonia Trial. During this trial, Nelson Mandela and a number of other prominent liberation struggle figures were charged with treason and subsequently incarcerated. 

Union Buildings

The Union Buildings form part of the logo for the City of Pretoria , the administrative capital of South Africa .

The sandstone building, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, was started in 1910 and completed in 1913. The total length is 285 meters and two wings spread out as a symbol of the meeting of English and Afrikaans cultures. This is to symbolize the unity that was accomplished after the Anglo Boer War. The ground where the Union Buildings have been erected originally belonged to Andries Francois Du Toit. He sold his land which was called Arcadia , to Stephanus Jacobus Meintjies, from where the hill became Meintjieskop.

Entrance to the building itself is prohibited for security reasons, since it is the site of the Presidential Offices. However, the beautiful terraced gardens, which boast a wide variety of indigenous plants, are open to the public and provide a truly amazing view over the city.

Several monuments are still to be found in the terrace like garden including that of a statute of Gnl. Louis Botha who was the first South African President. Another memorial braces the garden, that of Delville Wood War Memorial, erected in memory of South African soldiers who died during World War I. It also features a memorial plaque in honor of those who lost their lives during the Korean War.

The historical inauguration of President Nelson Mandela took place in front of these buildings.