Grahamstown, officially Makhanda, is a small Eastern Cape city with an outsized cultural life. It has the feel of an old university town: stone churches, museum buildings, students, festival posters, and a complicated frontier history that still needs to be read with care.
The city is most alive during the National Arts Festival, when venues across town fill with theatre, music, dance, comedy, and visual art. Outside festival time, the best anchors are quieter: the Cathedral of St Michael and St George, the Albany Museum, and the odd little Observatory Museum.
It is not a polished tourist town, and that is part of the interest. If you are nearby on the N2 or coming inland from the Sunshine Coast, Grahamstown gives you a day of South African history and culture that feels very different from another beach stop.