Although billed as a city, Grahamstown looks more like an English village than anything else—if you discount that alter ego of most South African towns, the contiguous shanty townships. These are a big part of Grahamstown, and they contribute to the city's wealth of cultural history. Established as a garrison town to enforce the arbitrarily assigned border of the British Cape Colony, Grahamstown was the center of several battles during the last couple of centuries.
It's worth spending a day or two to explore the sights and to perhaps take a tour—just to reinforce the fact that history, no matter how accurately portrayed, is always subjective.
