If your clients are spending a couple of hours or even a day in Johannesburg, there’s plenty to do. Here are some suggestions.
- Shopping
Johannesburg is a fantastic shopping destination with some of the largest and most luxurious malls on the continent. From the airport, travellers can take a direct Gautrain link to either Sandton City Mall or Rosebank Mall.
Sandton City Mall is one of Africa’s leading and most prestigious shopping centres. It offers an unparalleled shopping experience that combines the world’s most desirable brands (from Jenni Button to Louis Vuitton and Carrol Boyes) with everyday leisure and entertainment. Travellers will find luxurious designer boutiques as well as high street fashion (both European and African labels) and home wear and interior outlets.
Rosebank Mall is situated in one of the trendiest business nodes in Johannesburg. This four-storey mall boasts stylish stores that offer shoppers an assortment of fashion and accessory outlets, upmarket restaurants, coffee bars and a Craft Market. Rosebank Mall’s markets are a hit with travellers – the Rosebank Art & Craft Market is open daily and the Rosebank Sunday Market is open every Sunday. With its exclusive collection of African art, tribal artefacts and indigenous curios, the market is a bargain hunter's paradise.
- Pampering
Situated close to OR Tambo, Octavia’s Day Spa in the opulent Peermont D’oreale Grande Hotel, offers the ultimate relaxation for travellers who want to escape the hustle and bustle of the airport and get pampered.
The décor of this day spa epitomises Ancient Rome and is tranquil and welcoming. Besides a wide variety of therapies and massages, the spa also offers exceptional facilities that will allow guests to completely unwind before embarking on their next flight. The spa features a magnificent Roman Bath and a Swiss Shower, as well as a complete range of beauty products. Professional staff are on hand to provide recommendations regarding the latest techniques in a full range of spa treatments.
- Art in the city
For those who want to experience the hip-and-happening atmosphere of Jozi, the Maboneng precinct is the place to be. Maboneng, meaning ‘Place of Light’, used to be declared a no-go zone as a result of urban decay and crime, but the district is now fast becoming a centre of creative energy for Johannesburg’s urban artists. With a mix of art galleries and retail and studio space on offer, the precinct draws the inner-city public, as well as the chic, art-going crowd of the city’s northern suburbs.
A fully fledged thriving community, Maboneng is home to Arts on Main, an industrial space that has been turned into a cultural oasis with art galleries and private studios. Arts on Main has a historic look and feel – it has retained its industrial aspect, with concrete-coloured walls and a metal fire escape that rises up to the second level of the building.
- Discover the city’s history
If time allows, there are many interesting half-day tours travellers can do in Johannesburg that will allow them to explore the city’s rich history, such as a visit to the Apartheid Museum or the Hector Pieterson Museum or a half-day visit to Maropeng and the Cradle of Humankind.
The Apartheid Museum offers visitors a daunting trip back in time. The museum was designed to resemble the hostile and difficult conditions that were experienced by numerous South Africans during the apartheid era. It offers a true but harsh and brutal look at the reality of apartheid, which is why children under the age of 11 are unable to visit the museum.
The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum is in Soweto, just a few blocks from where 12-year-old Hector Pieterson was shot in 1976 because he took part in a peaceful protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in black secondary schools. The museum commemorates the role of the country’s students in the struggle against apartheid.
For those wanting to venture even further back in time, the Maropeng Visitor Centre takes visitors back to the start of our universe, some 14 billion years ago. Maropeng is the official visitors’ centre for the Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage Site. More than 1 000 hominid fossils and several hominid species have been found in a network of limestone caves here, spanning a period of around three million years
- Mix with the locals
A visit to the vibrant township of Soweto is an absolute must for any traveller. The easiest way to visit Soweto while in transit is on an official half-day (or full day) township tour.
A tour will allow travellers to mix with the locals at one of the numerous shebeens (local drinking taverns), and hear stories, experience local music and taste local, traditional food. A township tour will not only give visitors insight into the daily life of many South Africans, it will also offer them a glimpse of the country’s history. Most tours will take travellers to Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown, where South Africa's Freedom Charter (a document used to help draft the country's Constitution) was signed in 1955. They will also visit the famous Vilakazi Street, where Nelson Mandela once lived.
