At the end of April there is a large festival held here in Joburg called the Lusito Land Festival. There is a big Portuguese influence here in South Africa and this festival celebrates the culture and tradition of the Portuguese. I really love the diversity here in South Africa and I was really happy we got the chance to attend this last month.
Welcome to Lusito Land
In my last post about our walk in Kensington, I mentioned that the Fun Seekers Meetup Group then proceeded to the Maboneng Precinct for lunch at Market on Main. Maboneng is a rejuvenated inner city neighborhood of Johannesburg, just to the east of the CBD (Central Business District). It is considered to be a young and hip area with a whole host of restaurants, bars, art (both galleries and street) and many unique shopping boutiques. The Market on Main is part of Arts on Main and is held every Sunday from 10am-3pm (there is also a Night Market on the 1st Thursday of the month). Market on Main has been on my Must-Do list since we arrived in Jozi 6 months ago and I was excited to finally get the chance to check this out.
Heading to Market on Main
After nearly four months of living right down the street from the Fourways Farmer’s Market, we finally got around to stopping by and checking things out this past weekend. The market is across from Montecasino in Fourways and open every Sunday from 10am until 3pm 9am until 2pm.
Fourways Farmer’s Market
Besides spending time in the great outdoors, one of our other favorite pastimes is eating. We have eaten out at quite a few places since we have been here but this is the first time I have decided to include a restaurant review on my blog. We have had quite a few good and very good meals here so far, but this past weekend we discovered a place that stands out a bit above the others that we have tried so far and I feel a bit more motivated to write about our experience.
For our first outing in Joburg we decided to take the Hop-on, Hop-off City Sightseeing Red Bus tour to get a peek into some of the neighborhoods of downtown Johannesburg. The bus has only been in operation since February this year in Joburg but we have always enjoyed this tour in Cape Town (in fact we have set aside a day for this on each of our trips there) and this ended up being a great intro to the city for us.
There are a total of 12 possible stops, not including the optional Soweto tour. It is impossible to hop on/off at every stop in one day so I suggest you study the route in advance and plan your day carefully to get to see your top spots. It would likely take the better part of 3 days to really see everything on the route.
As we are totally Joburg newbies, we didn’t feel comfortable yet (still don’t) driving in the CBD (Central Business District) , so we drove to Sandton to park and took the Gautrain to Park Station, the first stop of the tour (you can however start wherever you like).
Waiting for the Gautrain at Sandton Station
Under an African Sun 