Mzanzitravel Magazine

Discover South Africa
A fascinating way of spending a day or two in the city is to go on your own or with
a guide on a historical tour or city walk. Among the many places of interest you
will be visiting is the National Afrikaans Literary Museum and Research Centre
in a Cape Dutch-style building that originally accommodated the government
structures of the Boer Republic of the Orange Free State in the 1800s. The
museum houses the largest collection of Afrikaans literature and manuscripts, as
well as artefacts belonging to well-known Afrikaans writers. Also accommodated
here is the National Sotho Library.
A visit to the Old Presidency will introduce you to the world of the old Boer
presidents from Josias Philip Hoffman in the mid-1850s, to the last president,
Marthinus Steyn, who left office in May 1902 after the Boer republics were defeated
by the British in the Anglo-Boer War. After this, in 1910, the Free State became a
province of the Union of South Africa under British rule. In 1961 it became one of
the four provinces of the Republic of South Africa, and in 1994 became one of the
nine provinces of the post-apartheid South Africa.
emaining in the era of Boer rule, you can next visit the Fourth Raadsaal (Fourth
National Assembly), an impressive and well-designed classical building dating
back to the 1800s. Then it housed the Boer republic’s legislature; today it houses
the Free State Provincial Legislature.
Next we take a step forward in history, visiting Maphikela House, the house and now
national monument of Thomas Maphikela, who was one of the founder members
of the ANC in Bloemfontein in 1912. Many important and historic meetings of the
ANC, which today governs South Africa, were held in this double-storey house.
Not far away is the renovated Waaihoek Wesleyan Church where a group of chiefs
and people’s representatives founded the ANC on 8th January 1912. The church
is now a national heritage site and has been nominated for recognition as a UN
World Heritage Site.
Visser Rugby Museum, Special Service Battalion Museum, SA Armour Museum, and
the Free State Agricultural Museum.
Other monuments and historical sites include the Free State Youth Martyrs’
Monument, for young people who died in the struggle against apartheid; the old
residential section of the ‘coloured’ community of New Clare Township before they
were forcefully removed; the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Batho where
ANC documents were hidden during apartheid; Heroes’ Acre; and the birth house of
communist leader and anti-apartheid struggle hero Bram Fischer. Fischer, a lawyer
from a prominent Free State Afrikaner family, spent months on the run from security
police, heavily disguises, before his arrest and imprisonment.
Other places of interest are Naval Hill with its statue of Nelson Mandela, said to be
the largest of him in the world, overlooking the city; the Franklin Game Reserve that
forms part of Naval Hill; the more than 4,000 rose trees in the rose garden at King’s
Park, which was opened in 1925 by the Prince of Wales, Eduard VIII; the Boyden
Observatory; Bloemfontein Zoo with its Loch Logan Waterfront complex; Modenso
Park Model Steam Trains at Maselspoort Resort; the Windmill Casino; and the Free
State National Botanical Garden. Naval Hill is also home to the very first digital
planetarium in Sub-Saharan Africa.
For culture and entertainment buffs the annual Mangaung African Cultural Festival,
known as Macufe, has become one of the biggest cultural festivals on the African
continent. It features top talent from around Africa and offers craft markets, theatre,
dance, poetry, boxing, gospel, film, African music, comedy, jazz, a divas’ concert, an
Afrikaans music concert, and the annual Macufe Cup for soccer fanatics.
For sports enthusiasts, apart from the Macufe Cup, the city has a number of
outstanding golf courses. It is also home to the VKB Knights at their cricket home
ground, the Mangaung Oval, and the Free State Stadium where the province’s
Cheetahs rugby team play their home games.
Among the many other fascinating buildings in the city – old and relatively
newer – are the Tweetoring Kerk, a twin-spired Dutch Reformed Church built
in 1880 where the famous Rev Andrew Murray had been a minister and where
presidents once took their oath of office; the Anglican Cathedral where the city’s
founder, Major Henry Douglas Warden, laid the foundation stone in 1850; the
Supreme Court of Appeal building completed in 1929, with its stinkwood-panelled
courtroom, impressive judges’ library and a record of major trial in the country’s
judicial history; the 1909 Supreme Court building now housing the Free State
High Court; the impressive sandstone City Hall designed by Sir Gordon Leith,
declared a national conservation area in its entirety; the Bloemfontein Public
Library; the Lebohang Building, with its beautiful stained-glass and concrete panel
that houses offices of the Free State Provincial Government; and the modern but
very impressive glass-constructed Bram Fischer Building where the Mangaung
Metropolitan Municipality is housed.
Museums in the city include Freshford House Museum, the National Museum,
National Women’s Memorial & Anglo Boer War Museum, First Raadsaal Museum,
Wagon Museum, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Queen’s Fort Military Museum, Choet
Big Five regional travel routes
For ease of reference and easy travel planning in the province, Free State Tourism
has divided the province into the Big Five travel routes: Flamingo, Lion, Eagle,
Cheetah and Springbok Routes.
Lion Route
The Lion Route is in the northern part of the province close to Gauteng and
Johannesburg. It includes the towns of Parys on the Vaal River, Vredefort and
Kroonstad. Parys offers river rafting, berry picking at Bon-Af Berry Farm, the popular
Hartelus Market, the Vaal Art and Organic Market, fly-fishing, bird watching and the
Kommandonek hike, among much more. Vredefort is the central point of the world
famous UN Heritage Site, the Vredefort Dome, a 300km wide crater formed from the
biggest meteorite impact yet found on Earth. It is nearly twice as big as the impact
that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.