The sheer beauty of your surroundings while walking the streets of Pretoria almost allows you to forget you are in one of the most impoverished parts of the world. The urban appeal of any North American city is replicated here in the midlands of South Africa with all the amenities of western life so easily integrated into the political capital of the Republic. Western retail stores and fast food chains line the streets of city center where masses of people flock. Walking down the main street of city center you see everything from McDonalds to a small ethnic food shop where everyone only speaks Tswana.
While the glamour of the new, skyscraping buildings may draw the full attention of some visitors, to truly experience the nature of the city you need to look to the past. Amidst all the typical urban appeals of a city lie signs and memories of a different time, a past regime. The older buildings and portions of the city give the city a character that is unlike everywhere else. These old buildings are all either fenced in or surrounded by walls and lined with barbed wire, signs of the times of apartheid. The majority of the inhabitants of these areas was once the privileged whites, but is now mostly a black area. It is in these neighborhood and areas where the calls for a revitalized black cultural movement are strongest and most frequent.
The areas of Church Square and the Union Building are the true gems of Pretoria. Church Square is the cultural center of the city and boasts many important buildings from the time of apartheid as well as architectural beauties. The Union Building is the political headquarters for all of South Africa with the chair of the President being located here. This building sits at the highest point in the city and directly beneath it lays an expansive area of gardens which contain all the natural plants of South Africa.
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