Bloeming Good Fun

Make the most of your time in the Free State’s largest city

- Liesl Vermaak

Being nowhere near the coast and not having the same intensity as a business destination as Johannesburg, Bloemfontein relies on a facet not appreciated until it’s impossible to find in big cities: the generally laid-back attitude of a much smaller place.

In the capital of the Free State province (and the judicial capital of South Africa), there are plenty of spots to make the most of that aspect of the city. An obvious place to start, given that the literal translation of the place’s name is ‘flower fountain’, is the Free State National Botanical Garden. It offers a different experience to the likes of Kirstenbosch or the Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden in Joburg, featuring hundreds of species of plants from the Free State, Lesotho and the Northern Cape. There are a number of walking trails as well as a petrified tree that, it’s believed, is more than 150 million years old.

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