3 Best Sights in Johannesburg, South Africa

Victoria Yards is an urban renewal project on the fringe of the inner city that has reimagined abandoned warehouses into a mixed-use lifestyle complex. It supports the surrounding community through its three on-site nonprofits and urban farming project, while locals and tourists explore the 50-odd artists’ workshops, decor showrooms, galleries, and fashion outlets housed in its brick-face buildings. The driving force behind Victoria Yards is sustainability, with tenants making designer bags from vibrant shweshwe fabric (a printed cotton fabric) and plastic waste, homeware made from recycled industrial parts, upcycled pre-loved clothing, and a sorbet stand that buys overripe, unsold fruit from community street-side sellers to make frozen desserts.

If your appetite gets the better of you on a visit, there’s an old-school "tuck shop," coffee roastery, and bakery that stands shoulder-to-shoulder to a small-batch gin distillery, as well as a bar, and a traditional walk-in fish-and-chips shop with wooden benches arranged in the courtyard. Although it’s open 7 days a week, the First Sunday Market (first Sunday of the month, 10 am–4 pm) hosts a collection of additional vendors who sell everything from collectibles, antiques, and handmade African curios to food and drink. There is free, undercover parking available, as well as overflow on-street parking with parking guards, making it safe to visit on your own.

A symbol of the renewal process going on in the city, this modern, 931-foot-long bridge with sprawling cables spans the Braamfontein railway yard, connecting Braamfontein and the revamped Newtown Cultural Precinct to The Market Theater and Maboneng Precinct. The bridge is especially beautiful at night when it is colorfully illuminated (though walking across without a guide, even during the day, is not advised).

Built in 1901, this impressive cream-sandstone complex—home to the administrative branch of government and now a national heritage site—was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, one of South Africa's most revered architects. This is where Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the country’s first democratically elected president in 1994. The complex incorporates a hodgepodge of styles—an Italian-tile roof, wooden shutters inspired by Cape Dutch architecture, and Renaissance columns—that somehow work beautifully. Expansive formal gardens step down the hillside in terraces, which are dotted with war memorials and statues of former prime ministers. What is most striking is the 9-meter-tall bronze statue of Mandela with outstretched arms by South African sculptors André Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren. Although there's no public access to the building, the gardens are perfect for a picnic lunch.