Heavenly hotel
If you’re looking for an intimate getaway, there’s nowhere better than the boutique luxury of the Athol Place in classy Sandton (atholplace.co.za). And if those 5,700ft of high-veldt altitude start to feel intimidating, you’ll be grateful for the cosy fireplace in each bedroom to escape to. Doubles from £226.
Breakfast bar
The best spot in the northern suburbs for breakfast is Fourno’s Bakery (fournos.co.za – there are three branches to choose from), with its range of still-warm breads, pastries, quiches, cakes, samosas, pies and sausage rolls. The farmhouse breakfasts are superb and will keep you going all day, or try toasted rye bread topped with goat’s cheese, spinach and poached eggs. Good value, too.
Lunch hangout
The Radium Beerhall (theradium.co.za) is the oldest surviving bar and grill in Jo’burg. Eating here is the closest you’ll get to reliving the time of the gold rush – the walls are covered in memorabilia from those heady days, right back to the Radium’s birth in the 1920s. The long bar is from the Ferreirastown hotel, built in the early mining era. Food is the surf’n’turf variety, and there is a wide selection of beers. At night there’s excellent live jazz.
Dining haven
It seems ironic that Jo’burg’s swishest restaurant, the Pigalle-Sandton (pigallerestaurants.co.za) is in a square named after its most famous former prisoner – Nelson Mandela – in a shopping mall. But in terms of decadence you can’t better its Italian marble, oil paintings, sumptuous furnishings and delicious haute cuisine. Expect Wags in abundance.
Post-match drinks
For a sundowner cocktail, saunter on to the unashamedly classy terrace at the Westcliff (westcliff.co.za), an Orient Express hotel from which you can see right across to the Magaliesberg Hills, and take in the sunset. If you like cocktails with a bit of glitz in the prime suburb Sandton, visit the Baron (thebaron.co.za/sandton.asp). The Westcliff is a BA Prestige Collection hotel. To book, call
+44 (0)844 493 0753 or visit
ba.com/thecollection.
Match of the day
Two giant stadia, Soccer City and Ellis Park, will be hosting the official matches, including the opening game and the final. For those without a ticket, three fan parks will be in operation. Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown is the official Fifa World Cup fan park, while Innes-Free Park in Sandton and Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown have been set aside as public viewing facilities, with food, drink and entertainment.
Thrills for all the family
You’ll get a place in parent heaven for taking the children to Sun City (suncity.co.za), ‘where the sun always shines’. A must-see is the Valley of the Waves, its fantastic 2m surf breaking on to an artificial beach, and there’s a games arcade to enjoy. Other activities include horseriding, elephant rides, quad biking and archery.
When the football’s not on
A tour of Constitution Hill (constitutionhill.org.za) will
take you on an exploration through South Africa’s painful past to the celebration of its transition to post-apartheid democracy. The tour will take you through The Fort, the women’s jail, and the men’s notorious Number Four Prison, as well as a contemporary art collection.
Must-see
Soweto, the famous township, is the largest black urban residential area in Johannesburg. It is also the country’s most metropolitan area, setting trends in politics, music, fashion and dance. A tour around it will take you to the Apartheid Museum and Nelson Mandela’s
home and give you a sense of
life on the streets.
Visit our other World Cup guides to Cape Town and Durban for more inspirational ideas.
