South African Holidays

Robben Island Tours




Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prison cell
Nelson Mandela's cellNo visit to Cape Town is complete without a tour of Robben Island, which has served variously as a leper colony, army base and penal colony for the last few hundred years, but is now a World Heritage site.

One of the island's most famous former residents is of course Nelson Mandela, who spent 18 years on the island as a political prisoner, doing hard labour in the limestone quarry while serious criminals at the prison were assigned laundry duty or even skills-based training schemes to equip them for life once they were released. It says a lot about the man that he was able to emerge from such an ordeal not only retaining his sanity and dignity, but also without any trace of bitterness which one would expect from someone who'd suffered the way he had.

Robben Island tours

Daily tours depart from Cape Town's V&A Waterfront (weather permitting), and it takes the ferry roughly half an hour to cover the 12km to the island. Once there, you can expect an hour-long guided bus tour around the island to see, among other sites, the lime quarry where political prisoners carried out their daily hard labour. This is followed by an hour's tour of the prison, where you will get a glimpse of the conditions under which the prisoners were held. These tours are often led by former Robben Island prisoners, so you will get the "inside" story.

You are advised to book in advance, as tours tend to fill up fast. Tickets can be booked online.