A view of Johannesburg’s rich and turbulent history and heritage.
Johannesburg Heritage walking tour: Victoria Yards I’m so pleased I followed my own advice. My Pick of the Week for the 4th February was a Johannesburg Heritage Foundation tour of Victoria Yards on Saturday 11th February and I wasn’t disappointed. Brian Green, of 44 Stanley fame, and the mover and shaker behind Victoria Yards, took […]
Read More »Remembered history and forgotten pasts – a walking tour of Fietas and Brixton The Roving Bantu sounds like a very un-PC name … but fortunately that is what Sifiso calls himself because of his years in exile as part of the South African apartheid diaspora. Jozi-ites were the winners when he met Ashley Heron on […]
Read More »Kota Festival Soweto 16-17 September I love channel 702, although my listening is always very disjointed and haphazard as sadly I only listen to it when driving. I was fascinated the other day to hear Sidwell and Fikile being interviewed by Azania Mosaka about the Kota festival coming up in Soweto on the 16th […]
Read More »Vreni arrives at Park Station Last Saturday, there was great excitement for small boys who are Thomas the Train addicts, as well as all big boys who have a secret (and sometimes not so secret) fascination with steam trains. My grandsons and their parents […]
Read More »From Joburg CBD, to the birth of humankind to Sandton glass status symbols – they saw it all Liz at Lancaster was delighted to host a wonderful couple from San Francisco in the States recently. It was their first time to South Africa, in fact to Africa and they were up for everything. Although they […]
Read More »The Casspir project – transformation from symbol of hate and fear to aesthetic object to be admired for its riot of colour, creativity and skill What is a Casspir? Did you know that Casspir is an anagram of the acronyms SAP (South African Police) and CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research)? The Casspir was a […]
Read More »Past Experiences and Joburg graffiti tours Over 2 years ago I joined a fascinating tour of graffiti in Newtown with Jo Buitendach of Past Experiences. Somehow life has a habit if getting in the way and I didn’t write about it at the time but got re-inspired after attending a recent talk on Joburg graffiti. […]
Read More »Following the prisoner with garlands of flowers He must have cut a strange figure. A small man in prison clothing surrounded by prison warders (having arrived by train from a Volksrust prison) being walked from Park Station to the Old Fort in Braamfontein. This vignette was made all the more unusual because of a following […]
Read More »How’s this for an AMAZING initiative. Not ONE free walk, but THIRTEEN … all over the week-end of the 24th and 25th June. #JoziWalks is a series of free walking tours initiated by the Johannesburg Development Agency in partnership with local community activists, tourism entrepreneurs, walking tour operators, and the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation. Because I suffer from […]
Read More »Linden: a little gem Linden, a little jewel of a suburb with an interesting history, is a mere 6km from Liz at Lancaster. Originally part of the farm Klipfontein, it was laid out in 1901 by Laurens Geledenhuys (who founded neighbouring Emmarentia) and Johannes Van der Linde. It was very much a rural area […]
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