Robben Island Robben Island
Robben Island is located in Table Bay, Western Cape Province, South Africa. It is a small island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 13 square kilometers and is the largest coastal island in South Africa. Beginning in the 17th century, Robben Island became a place where colonists imprisoned Aboriginal resistance leaders. After 1960, Robben Island became a prison for the South African authorities to detain political prisoners, and has held more than 3,000 black movement leaders and activists. In June 1964, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment by the white South African government at the time and began to serve his sentence on Robben Island until he was transferred to Polsmoor Prison in 1982.
After the apartheid act was abolished, the island became the National Museum of South Africa and was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. To visit Robin Island, we need to take a boat at the Victoria Harbor Pier (the whole tour plus round trip by boat takes about 3 and a half hours, the boat schedule depends on the weather conditions), and after arriving at the Robin Island Pier, take the island bus to browse, you can visit Prison, Mandela's cell, history museum. Because many Irish people lived on Robben Island many years ago, in addition to the prison building, there are also some folk houses, known as the Irish House. There is a church and a school built on the island. Now it is not only a museum that reproduces the history of apartheid in South Africa, but also a famous tourist attraction. Every year during Valentine's Day, many couples hold weddings here on Robben Island, which has become the Island of Love.
