Constitution Hill

Frommer's Review

On a hill overlooking the inner city, this is Jo'burg's answer to Cape Town's popular Robben Island attraction, and is billed as a living tribute to the country's enshrined freedoms and human rights, housing South Africa's architecturally provocative Constitutional Court, where you can view artworks or -- in the spirit of transparency -- even attend court hearings. Like Robben Island, this is the site of a prison -- the notorious 19th-century Old Fort, where brutalities of the worst kind were perpetrated on innocents in the name of apartheid; both Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi were detained here. A guided tour includes Number Four, the scene of much human torture and now replaced by an exhibition that attempts to unearth the notion of criminality. A work in progress, Constitution Hill centers on Constitution Square, a central piazza, where you'll find two stairwells that belonged to the original "Awaiting Trial Block" of the prison; a wall here is filled with a range of comments made by South Africans as the country attained freedom.

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