Open letter to our foreign media friends by Peter Davies 09/06/2010 Dear World Cup visitors, Now that you are safely in our country you are no doubt happily realising you are not in a war zone. This may be in stark contrast to what you have been bracing yourself for should you have listened to [...]

Liz at Lancaster entered the AA rating process where guests give feedback after their stay to assess the quality of the accommodation, its facilties and the service offered.  Liz and her team at Liz at Lancaster :  Zac, Catherine and Thandi, were really delighted that Liz at Lancaster reached the final round in the AA and American [...]

I tend in my blog posts to focus on Jozi and its surrounds, but this time I am going a little further afield.  Packed with a thermos of coffee and the inimitable South African ‘padkos’ (food for the road), I drove down with my son to Port Elizabeth nearly two weeks ago.   At the near mid-way mark at [...]

I have stayed in a range of hotels across the world. In fact, I work for a very prominent hotel in New York City. The service that I received at Liz at Lancaster was a breath of fresh air. Congratulations, and thank you. Alana Washington 28/12/10
I can not think of any thing that they could have [...]

As an international tourist who has never visited Joburg, it can be a very confusing place.  There are many reasons for this:

The boundaries have changed over time
It covers a huge area
There is very poor street signage
There has been no useable tourist public transport, although this is in the process of being changed (see post 23 [...]

Cape Argus Cycle Race:  14 March
Human Rights Day:  21 March
Public Holiday:  22 March
School Holidays:  27 Mar – 11 Apr
Good Friday: 02 April
Two Oceans Marathon:  03 Apr
Family Day:  05 April
Freedom Day:  27 Apr
Workers Day:  01 May
Comrades Marathon:  30 May
Youth Day:  16 June
Grahamstown Festival:  20 Jun – 08 July
Durban July:  03 Jul
School Holidays 10 June – 11 [...]

Descending to look at the underground dig

Another great opportunity here in Jozi.  Yesterday, two friends and I visited Swartkrans, near Sterkfontein in the Cradle of  Humankind.   What a wonderful day!  One of South Africa’s 8 World Heritage sites, the Cradle is rich with fossil-bearing cave deposits spread over 13 different sites .  Fossils from several [...]

It’s Women’s Day in South Africa this Sunday 9th August. It marks the day in 1956 when 20,000 women, in an extraordinary brave, resolute and powerful show of  protest, marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the extension of the pass laws to women.  Although I am sorry to be missing commemorative celebrations here in Joburg, I [...]

Getting around Joburg: what are the present options? 
Minibus taxis
Introduced throughout South Africa in 1977, these 15-seater minibuses grew into a massive virtually unregulated industry. As their name suggests, they are more akin to small buses than to traditional taxis or cabs which either roam or are called to a destination (see metered taxis below).  Because [...]

SANParks has announced that bookings for accommodation in all its National Parks including Kruger National Park for both June and July 2010 will open on the 1st July 2009. The FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup takes place from 11 June to 11 July 2010.  The opening of reservations for two months at a time will be a [...]