Pretoria or Tshwane?

Finally in South Africa!  Been meaning to visit for a while, even missed the world cup last year :-(

Pretoria

Anyway, we're going to be in South Africa (SA) for a while, and we're staying in Johannesburg.  We're planning to visit as many places as possible whilst here, starting with Pretoria.

Pretoria is a city situated in the northern province of Gauteng, and serves as the administrative capital.  Pretoria is also referred to as 'Tshwane' which is the proposed name change that still hasn't been decided.  Quite a few name changes took places after the end of Apartheid, example is the Johannesburg airport which is now known as the O.R Tambo International Airport.  Pretoria is also the Jacaranda city, due to the thousands of Jacaranda trees planted along streets, in parks and gardens.

Paul Kruger

We started off our visit along Church street and at Church square where there's the Paul Kruger statue ( a scary looking man if I must say, he was the State President of the SA Republic (Transvaal) and was the face of the Boer war).  The square is surrounded with great architectural buildings.  It was also a busy day at the square park, with quite  a few people having picnics (it seems to be a traditional here as well as braai; it was also the Nigerian independence weekend).

Union Buildings

Then we visited Union Buildings at the top of the hill designed by Sir Herbert Baker, is the administrative headquarters of Government.  It is best remembered as the site of former President Nelson Mandela's inauguration.  We couldn't resist the lure of the National Zoological garden which was also in Pretoria.  It turned out to be alot of fun.  Its actually a huge parkland with an impressive collections of animals e.g. Lions, Giraffes, Elephants, Flamingos, Rhinos, Hippos etc.

We tried to visit Freedom's park, built to commemorate South Africa's political and cultural heritage but it was closed and we haven't had a chance to go back. We were able to visit the Voortrekker Monument, a huge granite structure located on the hill and was raised to commemorate the Voortrekkers (Afrikaans and Dutch for pioneer or fore-trekkers) who left Cape colony between 1835 and 1854.  They were mostly farmers who had a general dissatisfaction of life under British rule in the Cape and desired a better life in a better country.

Slightly outside of Pretoria is an amazing Victorian colonial mansion built by Sammy Marks, who was a business tycoon at the time but originally from Lithuania - he came to SA to make his fortune.  He married an English woman called Bertha and they had eight children.  Bertha designed the house exactly like a typical home in the UK durint that perios with refined Victorian living exquisite furniture, porcelain, paintings and silver.  Sammy Marks declared in his will that the house with its contents are to be preserved for four generations after the day he died.  The house has been turned into a museum and its interior is preserved intact and wholly authentic.  They also offer picnics on the lawns of the estate.  We had a picnic there and were given a pcinic basket with goodies and blankets and pillows - a beautiful day!

A real find in Pretoria was the Prue Leith's Training academy's (Odd Plate) restaurant.  It was truly "an evening of epicurean elegance"!  We had a four course meal, the food was amazing (taste of perfection), the service (all students) was remarkable, the ambience was splendid (including the terrace for drinks) - need I say more?  

Sammy Marks Museum

Me!

Picnic @ Sammy Marks