South Africa

A country of two capitals and a hard, luminous history, where a colonial refreshment station under a flat-topped mountain became one of the most beautiful cities on earth and a mining camp on the highveld became the continent's richest metropolis. Walk Cape Town beneath Table Mountain, from the Company's Garden and the Castle to the painted lanes of the Bo-Kaap and the working harbour that looks out to Robben Island. Read Johannesburg from the prison-turned-Constitutional-Court on Constitution Hill to the Soweto streets where the road to freedom was walked, and the graceful capital of Pretoria around Church Square and Herbert Baker's Union Buildings. Some of the most moving heritage anywhere, and all of it better taken slowly, at your own pace, on your own schedule.