10 July 2015 | Fatima Gamby
The South African Museum attracts over 400 000 visitors each year. Image by South African Museum
Cape Town is rich with history and home to many museums that give visitors a glimpse of the past, the present and the future, and covering everything from natural history to South African heritage.
This month we feature the South African Museum as our Stop of the Month. To visit the museum all you have to do is take the Yellow Downtown Tour bus, and get off at stop 14 for a day full of adventure and discovery.
The South African Museum is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Cape Town, with over 400 000 visitors each year. For nearly 200 years scientists have been collecting pieces for the museum, to give visitors a better understanding of our history. There are now over 1.5-million items to see, including fossils millions of years old.
There are many activities designed for children at the museum. Image by South African Museum
July is a special month, being Nelson Mandela’s birth month. The museum is currently showing a special exhibition titled Tata Madiba: Father of our Democracy, Father of our Nation, which runs until the end of September. For Mandela Day the museum is hosting Iziko Book Drive where visitors are encouraged to donate books to the museum to share with community libraries. Another exhibition to enjoy this month is Nature’s Best Photography Africa, the African arm of an international competition associated with the world-famous Smithsonian Institution.
There are also permanent exhibitions that visitors can enjoy at the museum and also visit the planetarium for a closer look at the sky. There is so much to see at the museum – and with a bus passing by every 20 minutes, it couldn’t be easier or more convenient to get there.
