If you’re in Cape Town looking for an inspiring evening of classical music, the stirring Scottish reel sounds of massed bagpipes or a singing soloist with an angel voice, check out the City Hall at the Grand Parade. This historic venue is the home-base of the world-famous Cape Philharmonic Orchestra. more

Still spilling its bright beams of light onto the sea and sending its foghorn signals out in foul weather, the Green Point lighthouse has been saving lives and ships for nearly 2 centuries. As the gold standard of South African lighthouses, it has also served as a training centre for light-keepers. more

The Great Fish Point lighthouse near Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape is 1 of South Africa’s smallest lighthouses – but it casts a beacon light that can shine for up to 32 nautical miles out to sea. It is also 1 of 4 South African lighthouses to offer visitor accommodation. more

Lying within the bounds of the Cape Recife Nature Reserve on the southern boundary of Port Elizabeth is an active lighthouse that has been warning sea captains off Thunderbolt Reef since 1851. The area is particularly prone to fog, and the lighthouse is an essential guide to passing sea traffic. more

Even though it has long since been decommissioned for being built in the wrong place, the old Cape Point lighthouse is an important icon of the Cape Peninsula, and captures the imaginations of visitors who ascend to this craggy spot and look down at the rocky coastline and the ocean. more

Standing guard over idyllic West Coast Peninsula fishing villages and holiday destinations like Paternoster, Saldanha, Langebaan and Stompneus Bay, the Cape Columbine lighthouse still has a dedicated light-keeper and is the prime visual icon of the area. It is also popular with travellers looking for a picnic spot with romantic history. more

Doring Bay used to be a forgotten little West Coast village with a lonely lighthouse and little else. Although the lighthouse is still the iconic local feature, these days visitors come here to see the whales and to enjoy the wine of the vineyards that stand less than 1km from the ocean. more

The rocky and treacherous coastline of the southern Cape is watched over by many lighthouses, including the 1 at Danger Point, near the spot where HMS Birkenhead went down in 1852. At least 7 other vessels foundered in the area before the Danger Point lighthouse was built in 1895. more

The Anglo-Boer War Route in Northern Cape, also known as the N12 Battlefields Route, starts in the city of Kimberley, which was a British stronghold at the time war broke out on 11 October 1899. The Boers besieged it shortly thereafter. more

Head for the tourist-friendly town of Clarens, where you can walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs that roamed between 200-million and 190-million years ago, and where fossilised eggs with embryos still inside were found at nesting sites. more

Transforming a street of dilapidated old houses to their former Victorian glory wasn’t easy – and maintaining them even more of a challenge. Sandra Antrobus and her tuishuise ('town houses') in Cradock have become national treasures – and a prime stop-over in the Eastern Cape's Karoo. more

The Castle of Good Hope, South Africa’s oldest surviving colonial building, elicits 2 contrary impressions – the hardship of the early days, setting up a life in the unknown, and the later years of grace and elegance. The Castle packs poignant history into its 5-pointed boundary, against a background of Table Mountain. more

Walking around the beautifully made Voting Line sculpture at the Donkin Reserve in Port Elizabeth, you get the true sense of the Rainbow Nation of South Africa. The metal figures represent all the communities who share the land – and who voted peacefully on 27 April 27 1994. more

The Albany Museum in Grahamstown is a vast complex of static and mobile displays and a series of buildings housing a wide variety of artifacts, educational packages, historic dioramas, cultural collections and accessible science. For professional students, researchers and hobbyists alike, the Albany Museum represents a national asset. more