Tour Description
Our tour will introduce you to aspects of daily life in Soweto
and the social fabric of this vibrant city as well as offer you
some insights into its fascinating history. Some of the places
you will see and visit on this exciting tour are listed below.
Our tour combines driving, walking through areas and
meeting people as well as museum visits.
On our way to Soweto we will pass Soccer City Stadium,
the flagship stadium with its iconic calabash design which
was refurbished for the 2010 Soccer World Cup and
hosted the opening and closing match.
AVAILABILITY:
Daily – except on New Year’s Day, Good Friday &
Christmas Day (some attractions may be closed on
other public holidays).
MEALS:
Not included – Restaurant for lunch will be arranged.
TRANSPORT:
Air-conditioned vehicle with wifi dependant on group
size.
ENTRANCE FEES:
Included where applicable.
Itinerary
We enter Soweto through Diepkloof area.
Diepkloof is a large zone of Soweto township in the Gauteng province of South
Africa. It is also sometimes referred to as Diepmeadow, if considered as a
single township with the nearby Meadowlands. Diepkloof was established in 1959
to accommodate people being removed from Alexandra.
We pass by the newly upgraded Baragwanath taxi rank
near the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (one of the 3
largest hospitals in the world).
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, it
is the largest hospital in Africa and third largest hospital in the world. It
has 6,760 staff members, 3,400 beds and occupies 70 ha. The hospital is located
in the Soweto area south of Johannesburg.
We continue on through Orlando West to the hub of
Soweto. We stop outside Regina Mundi Church and
Freedom Square for a quick overview.
Orlando is a township in the urban area of Soweto, South Africa. The township was
founded in 1931 and named after Edwin Orlando Leake, Mayor of Johannesburg from
1925 to 1926. It is divided in two main areas: Orlando West and Orlando East.
We visit Walter Sisulu Square
(Freedom Square), formally
known as the Walter Sisulu
Square of Dedication, is
located in the heart of
Kliptown in Soweto.
This location was the site where, on 26 June 1955, the Congress of the People,
met to draw up the Freedom Charter, an alternative vision to the repressive
policies of the apartheid state. The document emphasised a non-racial society,
liberty and individual rights. The Freedom Charter remains the cornerstone of
African National Congress policy to this day and is seen by many as the
foundation of South Africa's 1996 constitution.
A turn down Vilakazi Street, home to 2 Nobel peace prize
winners: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president
Nelson Mandela.
Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (6 January 1906 – 26 October 1947) was a South African
novelist, a descendant of the Zulu royal family, and author of Romantic poetry
in the Zulu language. Vilakazi was also a professor at the University of
Witwatersrand, where he became the first Black South African to teach University
classes to White South Africans. In 1946, Vilakazi also became the first Black
South African to receive a PhD.
Vilakazi Street in Soweto, which is named after the poet, is now very famous as
the street where both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu once lived.
Visit Nelson Mandela’s house which is now a museum.
The Nelson Mandela National Museum, commonly referred to as Mandela House, is the
house on Vilakazi Street, Orlando West, Soweto, South Africa, where Nelson
Mandela lived from 1946 to 1962. It is located at number 8115, at the corner of
Vilakazi and Ngakane streets, a short distance up the road from Tutu House, the
home of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Mandela donated the house to the Soweto Heritage Trust (of which he was the
founder) on 1 September 1997, to be run as a museum.
It was declared a National Heritage Site in 1999.
We spend time at the Hector Pieterson Museum which tells
the history of Soweto’s the tragic killing of Hector Pieterson
the young teenager who was the first of many to die during
the period of terrible violence and conflict in the 70’s.
The Hector Pieterson Museum is a large museum located in Orlando West, Soweto,
South Africa, two blocks away from where Hector Pieterson was shot and killed 16
June 1976. The museum is named in his honour, and covers the events of the
anti-Apartheid Soweto Uprising, where more than 170 protesting school children
were killed.
The museum features films, newspapers, personal accounts and photographs, the
most famous being the iconic photo by Sam Nzima.
The Hector Pieterson Museum became one of the first museums in Soweto when it
opened on 16 June 2002. A companion museum nearby is Mandela House, the former
home of Nelson Mandela and his family, which has been run as a museum since
1997. The total cost of the Hector Pieterson Museum project was Rand 23.2
million, which was covered by a 16 million rand donation by the Department of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism and 7.2 million rand donation from the
Johannesburg City Council.
We’ll pass the iconic cooling towers which were part of the
Orlando power station which functioned from the early
1940s until it was decommissioned in 1998.
Orlando Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station in Soweto,
South Africa. The power station was commissioned at the end of the Second World
War and served Johannesburg for over 50 years. Here the
adventurous get their adrenalin rush with a daring 100m
bunjee jump from between the towers.
FAQs
Do the venues have card facilities?
Yes, all the facilites in the programme have card machines.
