Pretoria stacks its past in layers: a Mapungubwe gold rhino hidden away by apartheid censors, Kruger's ring of 1897 forts, a war-ending treaty signed on a dining table in 1902, and Freedom Park staring across one valley at the Voortrekker Monument.
The gold-foil rhino, sceptre and bowl from the Mapungubwe kingdom (c.1220–1290) sit in a vault-like gallery in the Old Arts Building. Kept quiet under apartheid because a wealthy Iron Age state contradicted the official story. Mon–Fri 10:00–16:00.
The 1892 Transvaal Museum guards Mrs Ples, the 2.1-million-year-old Australopithecus africanus skull from Sterkfontein, alongside Little Foot casts and Broom's original excavation notes. Austin Roberts' bird hall dates from the 1940s. Daily 08:00–16:00.
A 1.13km-wide crater punched out roughly 220,000 years ago, 40km north of the city. The 7km loop trail drops to the salt lake where Stone Age toolmakers worked and, much later, Tswana communities came to harvest salt. Open 07:30–16:00.
A wild fig reckoned at around 1,000 years old has layered itself into thirteen linked trunks above a Tswana chief's grave. On the ridge sits Fort Wonderboompoort, one of four forts Paul Kruger built in 1897 to ring his republican capital.
Gerard Moerdijk's 1949 granite block commemorates the 1838 Battle of Blood River. Its marble frieze runs 92m, the longest historical relief of its kind, and every 16 December at noon a shaft of sunlight strikes the cenotaph below.
Across the valley on Salvokop, Isivivane's boulders from all nine provinces stand above a Wall of Names listing some 75,000 dead from eight conflicts — including Cuban soldiers, a choice that sparked a public row with the monument opposite.
George Heys' 1886 Victorian mansion served as British headquarters during the occupation, and the Treaty of Vereeniging that ended the Anglo-Boer War was signed at its dining table on 31 May 1902. Original furniture and stained glass throughout.
Baker designed this sandstone station in the same years he was drawing the Union Buildings: a low curved facade, arcaded loggia and a wooden-benched concourse still largely intact. The Blue Train departs from its own siding here.
The 1884 mansion of Sammy Marks, the Lithuanian-born industrialist who bankrolled Kruger's republic and minted its coinage. Forty rooms keep their original Victorian contents, down to the billiard table, 20km east of town. Tue–Sun 08:30–16:00.
Pretoria's answer to Sophiatown: an Indian, Black and Chinese quarter hollowed out by forced removals from the 1960s. The 1905 Miriammen Temple, the Empire Cinema shell and the Mosque still stand among taxi ranks and fabric traders.
The township was laid out in 1953 for families removed from Lady Selborne. The square honours the ANC fighter hanged in 1979 at 22; nearby streets mark where Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro were assassinated by security police in 1986.
The springs here are the reason the city stands where it does — their water drew the Bronkhorst farmstead and then the 1855 town. Groenkloof on the ridge above was proclaimed by Kruger in 1895 and is often called Africa's first game reserve.