Shopping and Leisure Walk in Melville, Johannesburg

Shopping and Leisure Walk in Melville (Self Guided), Johannesburg

Melville, situated to the west of Johannesburg, is a somewhat haphazard mixture of family homes and bedsits, shops and galleries, sidewalk cafes and top-class restaurants. This combination gives it an almost village-like air and it is a lively, trendy area to visit. You can spend happy hours searching for bargains in the many antique shops, browse the secondhand book stores and the clothes shops.

Why not enjoy a coffee and watch the expressions on the faces of clients coming out of the body-piercing parlors! Dine in one of the restaurants – a stroll along the main streets is a mouth-watering experience, with the menu boards offering a wealth of different culinary experiences.

Don’t miss a visit to the incredible Melville Koppies, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated above the suburb. This nature reserve boasts the last original ridge of Johannesburg, dating back over 3 billion years and untouched by the 19th century gold rush that changed the surrounding countryside forever. In this beautiful park you will see an amazing collection of different bird species and plants. Tour the Stone and Iron Age archaeological sites. The ridge offers stunning views of the city so it is a great place to take photos.

Image Courtesy of Flickr and Gary Bembridge.

How it works: A discovery walk features a route using which you can explore a popular city neighborhood on your own. This walk, along with other self-guided walks in over 1,500 cities, can be found on the app "GPSmyCity: Walks in 1K+ Cities" which can be downloaded from Apple App Store or Google Play Store to your mobile phone or tablet. The app's built-in GPS navigation functions allow following this walk route with ease. The app works both online and offline, so no data plan is needed when traveling abroad.

Download The GPSmyCity App

Create Your Own Self-Guided Walks in Johannesburg

Guide Name: Shopping and Leisure Walk in Melville
Guide Location: South Africa » Johannesburg
Guide Type: Self-guided Walking Tour (Discovery)
Travel Distance: 2.6 Km or 1.6 Miles
Author: Linda

Walking Tours in Johannesburg, South Africa

Create Your Own Walk in Johannesburg

Creating your own self-guided walk in Johannesburg is easy and fun. Choose the city attractions that you want to see and a walk route map will be created just for you. You can even set your hotel as the start point of the walk.

Historical Buildings Walking Tour

Since founded in 1886, following the discovery of gold on what used to be farmland, Johannesburg has evolved into an economic powerhouse of Africa. While most of the city's early buildings adopted architectural styles from its colonial parent, the British Empire, some of them also emulated the prowess of New York City. Let's take a closer look at some of these construction marvels.

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Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 0.7 Km or 0.4 Miles

Johannesburg Introduction Walking Tour

Johannesburg, or Joburg, or "City of Gold", as it is often informally called, is South Africa's largest city. The area's original inhabitants included hunter-gatherers from the San tribes and the Ndebele, a tribe associated with the Zulu. A gold rush in 1884 lead to Johannesburg's founding in 1886. Within a decade, the population had grown to 100,000 inhabitants.

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Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 2.9 Km or 1.8 Miles

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