1-Day Pretoria City & Cullinan Mine Tour

The day trip begins in Pretoria, often called the Jacaranda City for the spring bloom that turns many streets purple. Your guided city highlights can include the Union Buildings on Meintjeskop, a landmark designed by Sir Herbert Baker and the official seat of South Africa’s government that houses The Presidency. From the gardens, enjoy commanding views over the city before continuing to other significant heritage sites such as the Voortrekker Monument and the period museum Melrose House, which played a role in the 1902 peace settlement that ended the Second Boer War.

A 9 m bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, arms outstretched, was unveiled in front of the Union Buildings on December 16, 2013, the day after his funeral. On a hill south of the city, the Voortrekker Monument was designed by Gerard Moerdijk and unveiled in 1949. Its Hall of Heroes holds a frieze of 27 marble panels depicting the Great Trek. At noon every December 16, a beam of sunlight falls through the dome onto the cenotaph below and lights the words Ons vir jou, Suid-Afrika. A wall of 64 carved wagons rings the building like a laager.

Melrose House was finished in 1887 for the businessman George Heys, who named it after Melrose Abbey in Scotland. After Pretoria fell in June 1900, Lord Roberts and then Lord Kitchener used it as the British headquarters. The peace treaty that ended the war was signed on its dining table on May 31, 1902.

In the afternoon, travel east of Pretoria to Cullinan for a diamond-heritage visit linked to the famous Cullinan Diamond, discovered in 1905. In its uncut state the stone weighed 3,106 carats and was later cut by Asscher in Amsterdam, with major stones incorporated into the British Crown Jewels. Where available, a mine or diamond-history tour provides insight into mining and how diamonds are formed deep underground under extreme heat and pressure.

Frederick Wells, a mine superintendent, found the stone on a routine inspection on January 26, 1905, and it was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, who owned the mine. The Transvaal government bought it and presented it to King Edward VII in 1907. Cullinan I, the Great Star of Africa, weighs 530.2 carats and is set in the Sovereign’s Sceptre, and Cullinan II sits in the Imperial State Crown. The mine’s open pit is about 1 km long and 500 m wide, and the village’s main street of tin-roofed cottages and jacaranda trees is a pleasant place to end the visit.

After time in Cullinan, the tour returns guests to their chosen drop-off locations in Johannesburg or Pretoria in the late afternoon.