Pretoria

South Africa's administrative capital, a graceful jacaranda city on the highveld an hour north of Johannesburg. Founded in eighteen fifty-five and named for the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, it grew around Church Square, the old civic heart ringed by the Palace of Justice and the Raadsaal, and rises to Herbert Baker's Union Buildings, the great sandstone amphitheatre where Nelson Mandela was inaugurated president in nineteen ninety-four. Read the seat of government and its historic square at your own pace, under the purple trees.