Robben Island Museum

Robben Island lies about eleven kilometres off Cape Town in Table Bay, low and flat, with Table Mountain filling the horizon behind it. For nearly four hundred years it was a place of banishment: the Dutch and then the British sent prisoners, political exiles and people with leprosy there, and from the 1960s the apartheid government used its maximum security prison to hold political prisoners, among them Nelson Mandela, who was held there for eighteen years, as well as Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Robert Sobukwe and many others. Since 1997 the island has been a museum, and in 1999 it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site as a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. The visit is a fixed package. You sail from the Nelson Mandela Gateway beside the Clock Tower at the V&A Waterfront, a crossing of about half an hour each way, and on arrival board a bus for a guided tour of the island: the limestone quarry where prisoners worked in blinding light, the house where Robert Sobukwe was held in solitary confinement, the leper graveyard, the old church and the village, with views back to the mountain. The tour then continues on foot inside the maximum security prison, where a guide — traditionally a former political prisoner, though fewer are still able to lead tours — explains daily life in the cells and shows you Mandela's cell in B Section. The whole experience lasts about three and a half to four hours, and it is moving in a way that no exhibit in the city can match. The ferries are weather-dependent, and tours are cancelled when the sea is too rough, which happens most often in the winter months; in summer, sailings are more reliable, but they sell out, so book ahead.

What you see on the island is deliberately understated. The prison is bare, the cells are tiny, and the power of the place comes from the stories told in the spaces where they happened. Guides describe the hierarchy of the prison, the system of food rations and clothing that depended on race classification, the censorship of letters, and the ways prisoners educated one another, so that the island became known as a university. The bus tour carries its own weight: the lime quarry, where the glare damaged prisoners' eyesight, includes the cairn of stones started by former prisoners at a reunion in 1995. Penguins, which returned to the island in the 1980s, and other seabirds share the shoreline.

How to visit well: book the official tour for a specific sailing, either through the museum's own system or as an online ticket like the one linked here, and arrive at the Nelson Mandela Gateway well before departure for boarding. The museum on the Gateway level has a small exhibition worth visiting while you wait. Sailing times are fixed, and the island's opening hours mean the last departures are early in the afternoon. Bring a jacket for the crossing, which can be rough, and expect the tour to run to a set pace with limited time to linger. If your sailing is cancelled because of weather, the museum will offer to rebook or refund, so it is wise to schedule Robben Island early in your stay.

Who it suits: anyone with an interest in South Africa, its history and the story of Nelson Mandela; it is one of the essential experiences of the city. Older children and teenagers often find it powerful, although the format of bus and talks can tire younger ones. For a full picture, pair it with the District Six Museum in the city, which tells the story of forced removals under apartheid, and with the Nobel Square statues at the Waterfront, a short walk from the Gateway.