Around and About PMB - The city of Choice

The assignment for the morning was to walk the streets of Pietermarizburg - leaving Phil to guard the car, we set off in the 40 degree heat!!!
It was so much fun and the people were really friendly! It's a crazy, peaceful kind of place, with peolple trading just  about anything everywhere, there are stunning old buildings stuffed between modern buildings, we could have gone on for hours as it was so much fun, but we were called back to the car and into lectures!!!!

Pietermaritzburg is the capital and second largest city of the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was founded in 1838, and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its "purist" Zulu name is umGungundlovu, and this is the name used for the district municipality. Pietermaritzburg is popularly called Maritzburg in English and Zulu alike, and often informally abbreviated to PMB. It is a regionally important industrial hub, producing aluminium, timber and dairy products. It is home to many schools and tertiary education institutions, including a campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It had a population of 228,549 in 1991;^[1] the estimated current population is around 500,000 (including neighboring townships) and has one of the largest population of Indian South Africans in South Africa.

         

Street Vendors sign: I love this guys honest and beautifully written board explaining his reason for not giving credit!

 

I found the people on the
streets to be so friendly &
mostly very happy to have their photo taken

There is such a contrast between the old & new buildings in Pietermariztburg.


Liberty Liquors is proud to have been voted “KZN’s Best Liquor Store” for seven years running.
                                                                 

Pietermaritzburg City Hall, constructed in 1893, destroyed by fire in 1895, rebuilt in 1901; the largest red-brick building in the Southern Hemisphere

The first Comrades Marathon took place on 24th May 1921, Empire Day, starting outside the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg with 34 runners. It has continued since then every year with the exception of the war years 1941-1945, with the direction alternating each year between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, the so called up & down runs.

 

what an impressive and beautiful building: the general public are welcome & there is no charge to walk around! You can also hire the hall for private functions.

Another Friendly Maritzburg face!

UmGungundlovu was the royal capital of the Zulu king Dingane (1828–1840) and one of several military complexes (amakhanda) which he maintained. He established his royal kraal in 1829 in the Emakhosini Valley against Lion Hill, just south of the White Umfolozi River.
The name UmGungundlovu stems from the Zulu word or phrase ungungu we ndlovu, which means "the secret conclave of the elephant". Some sources also refer to UmGungundlovu as "the place of the elephant". The word indlovu (elephant) refers to the king of the Zulu people.

The little back lanes in PMB are bursting with trade, shoe shops & hairdressers out number most other shops!

Harwins Arcade: How very sad to see such a beautiful bit of our history just left to ruins after a fire. It's crazy there are shops which are totally gutted and right next door there you will find busy working shop! there are no signs to prevent people from walking around the place: there are people working and living in what should be a condemned building!!!

The people who stay in Harwins see that there is major structral damage to the building: the answer?? Stick a big old pole between the problem!!!

This very styling lady was causing quite a stir as

she strutted her stuff along one of the main streets

Another wonderful example of the old buildings and new shoulder to shoulder.

On one side of the road you can find all the modern technologies and just across the street a building just overgrown in time!

Natural History Museum: On the left you see a sculptue of a fossil and on the right the oversized ants and spider bronze works on the front of the building.
Natal Museum ranks among the top National Museums in South Africa's, a cultural and natural history museum renowned for its unique collections - there are eight natural history and around ten cultural history galleries that include an array of mammals (together with the last wild elephant in KwaZulu-Natal), birds, amphibians, insects, an extensive mollusc collection (there are few South African land snails that are not represented in the Natal Museum) and a life-size T-Rex model.