Robben Island lies 9km from the shores of Cape Town. Once a mark of shame in the history of our land, it is now one of South Africa's top tourist attractions and a symbol of triumph over adversity.

A 3.5-hour-long tour of the museum on Robben Island begins at the Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. After a 30-minute ferry ride, visitors are taken on a tour of the former maximum-security jail by former political prisoners, who draw a vivid picture of life in incarceration. A 45-minute bus ride around the island acquaints visitors with its history.

In days gone by its proximity to the mainland made it ideal as a leper colony and place of quarantine.

Its notoriety peaked in 1960 when the apartheid government used the newly constructed maximum security section as a political prison. Here leaders of the struggle against racial oppression such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sibukwe developed their concepts for a post-apartheid South Africa. In recognition, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee marked the island for its "triumph of the human spirit' and declared it a World Heritage site in 1999.