Pretoria

Like Washington and Canberra, Pretoria is largely a forgotten capital city: it is, however, the executive and administrative capital of South Africa. Its grand buildings (including many foreign embassies) give the city an unexpectedly dignified and stately presence.

Although it is physically close to Johannesburg, Pretoria has a totally different feel to South Africa's commercial capital: it's quieter and calmer, and people stop to chat and smile. History abounds: the famous avenues of purple-flowered jacaranda trees were designed to be wide enough to allow a team of oxen pulling a cart to turn in them.

Such wagons belonged to the large numbers of voortrekkers who, leaving the British-dominated Cape, arrived in Pretoria in the 1850s. Sculptures and monuments attest to Afrikaaner history, and great care has been taken to preserve the fine architecture in the city centres, such as Church Square. A plan to change the city's name to Tshwane has been afoot in recent years without concrete results. Lately, the plan seems to have been sidelined.

Overlooking the whole of the city from a hilltop are the magnificent Union Buildings (designed by Sir Herbert Baker and built in golden stone with Italian tiled roofs), a Romanesque amphitheatre and African sculptures. Progress has brought high-tech shopping centres, museums, art galleries and multi-culinary restaurants. The city - often unfairly mocked for its stodgy provincialism - actually has four universities, a number of scientific institutes and an abundance of open spaces with parks, bird sanctuaries, nature reserves, and a zoo.

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