2 Best Sights in Gardens, Tamboerskloof, and Oranjezicht, Cape Town

Founded in 1825, this natural history museum houses more than 1½ million scientific specimens, from Stone Age tools to fairly recent finds. It's most popular for its "Whale Well," where life-size casts of enormous marine mammals are suspended over a multi-storied chamber, which leads to displays of marine and terrestrial animals in the old diorama style. International photography exhibits are often on display upstairs, and there is an interesting if creepy section on the fossil remains of prehistoric "mammal-like" reptiles. In the adjoining planetarium, visitors can experience the thrills of a 360-degree multisensory, full-dome theater, where a variety of shows for children and adults play six days a week.

Housed in the Old Synagogue—South Africa's first synagogue, built in 1863—this museum sits in the same complex as the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre and spans 150 years of South African Jewry, tracing the history of local Jewish culture back to Eastern Europe and elsewhere. The themes of Memories (immigrant experiences), Reality (integration into South Africa), and Dreams (visions for the future) are conveyed with high-tech multimedia and interactive displays, models, and artifacts. The complex also includes the Great Synagogue (built in 1905), an active place of worship, a temporary gallery for changing exhibits, an auditorium, and a museum restaurant and shop. The museum also exhibits the extraordinary Isaac Kaplan collection of Japanese netsuke (miniature ceremonial carvings), considered among the world's finest. Photo ID required for entry.