Africa’s Most Popular Destination is also its Best Kept Secret – Johannesburg!

Ask anybody who has spent any amount of time in Johannesburg and they will tell you that it has to be one of South Africa’s best kept secrets.

Egoli, the city of gold, is Africa’s commercial and economic capital, and anybody who wants to do business on the continent will have to spend time there (staying in one of the over 9,000 hotel rooms!).

In fact Joburg has just been named by the 2014 MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index as the Most Popular Destination City in Africa for the second year running. A cool 4.3-million international overnight visitors will visit Johannesburg during 2014.

But, all too often, for outsiders it is a place that one goes to merely to leave as soon as possible. It is a place of transits and transients rather than a destination in itself, with 55 airlines linking it to the rest of the country and the world.

Yet Joburg is an amazing city and deserves a lot more respect. It deserves to be more than just a quick stopover en route to Cape Town or the Kruger Park.

Beyond business and meetings, Joburg is a “truly cosmopolitan and vibrant destination where various cultures live and celebrate side by side; a city rich in music, fashion, arts, heritage and culture,” says Joburg’s Executive Mayor Parks Tau.

There is so much to do and see:

• The Apartheid Museum – www.apartheidmuseum.org
• Satyagraha House (which celebrates the time Mahatma Ghandi spent in the city) – www.satyagrahahouse.com
• Maboneng Precinct with Art galleries, restaurants and more – www.mabonengprecinct.com
• A trip to Soweto
• A drive to the Pilanesberg Nature Reserve
• You can visit about 150 heritage sites in Joburg
• Shop till your drop at Sandton City (which has just been voted Africa’s Best Shopping Centre for the 17th year!)
• …and so much more.

While you will be spoiled for choice for places to stay in Sandton, you can’t go wrong with the four-star Balalaika, the oldest hotel in the area and one of the only original hotels in South Africa, comparable to The Edward in Durban and The Mount Nelson in Cape Town.

The Balalaika predates the rest of the northern suburb by decades but has, through extensive redevelopment, managed to achieve that rare quality of being thoroughly modern yet timelessly quaint and comfortable.

The Balalaika, which is located in Maude Street, was already famous decades before Sandton City was built in the ’70s.

It dates back to 1949, in those heady post-war days…twenty years even before the establishment of the Municipality of Sandton in 1969 (which got its name from merging the words ‘Sandown’ and ‘Bryanston’).

The Balalaika started out as a tea garden, miles away from the bustling metropolis of Johannesburg. Soon a few rondavels were added for those coming in from the country who wanted to stay overnight. And, as evidenced by the photos from the past below, a lot has changed over the years…

The Balalaika has transformed from its bucolic beginnings as a destination for residents of Johannesburg and Pretoria into a premier business and tourist hotel in the heart of Africa’s retail capital.

Similarly to Joburg itself, what makes the Balalaika so special is that its transformation was an evolution rather than a revolution. Joburg was founded in 1886 and has evolved from tented camps through tin homes and Georgian buildings to city skyscrapers.

The Balalaika has transformed from tea garden to traditional country hotel to entertainment hub to, after its 1989 rebuild, state-of-the-art business and fine dining venue – it has done it all, and each stage has left its mark, creating something truly unique.

Its combination of top notch facilities, excellent service and rooms make it clear that you are in a place built for business in the heart of where business gets done; but its two magnificent gardens, each with its own sparkling swimming pool, means you could be at any of South Africa’s top tourist destinations, all within touching distance of the best of what Gauteng has to offer.

And in a city that’s the country’s best-kept secret, the Balalaika’s Bull Run restaurant is possibly the best kept secret of all! It’s a meat-lovers paradise (with vegetarian options too!) in a city full of them.

So next time you’re in Joburg, don’t just pass on through. Stay a while, put your feet up and enjoy the best of this amazingly vibrant and cosmopolitan city. You’ll be well looked after if you do.

Published with kind sponsorship of the Balalaika Sandton. Visit www.balalaika.co.za for more photos or contact reception@balalaika.co.za for more information.